Taylor is DOOMed
by mp3.1415player
Summary: Taylor wakes in an unfamiliar place. An unfamilar place is about to have a very, very bad day.
1. DOOMed, DOOMed I say!

_ Another one that started in my random ideas thread on Sufficient Velocity, I'm afraid. Some people seem to want it to continue as a real story, so I think if I put it here as its own thread, that will give me impetus to continue it. Nevertheless, I have other stories too that will probably take priority, so updates may well be sporadic and random... _

_ So on with the story, in which Taylor finds herself facing her DOOM. _

_And is not even **slightly **happy about it._

_There may be trouble ahead..._

* * *

"What… the _fuck?!"_

Taylor rolled over, unmentionable things squelching under her as she moved, while gagging at the stench of old blood and even less salubrious substances that rose in a toxic miasma and made it hard to breath. Choking on the stench, furious beyond belief, and totally disorientated, she stared at the ceiling for some time before the thought entered her mind…

"Where the _fuck_ am I?"

The last thing she could clearly remember was _fucking_ Sophia Hess laughing in the irritating manner she was so used to these days, perfectly conveying the sadistic pleasure the bitch took in causing pain to anyone who got in her way. Doubly so if that person was Taylor Hebert. Taylor hadn't actually _seen_ who had shoved her into her own god damned locker, but she _knew _beyond any doubt who had done it. That laugh, and a very familiar hand right in the middle of her back, left her completely certain who was behind this latest little attempt to break her.

She _would not_ break. She'd made that decision more than eighteen months ago, shortly after her own personal hell began, and it had become abundantly clear that there would be no respite. Not from the bitch Sophia, not from the girl who she'd grown up with who was if anything even worse, not from the little sycophant Madison, and sure as _fuck_ not from the school administration who were supposed to _stop_ this sort of shit.

The same administration who had basically ignored her, when they weren't actively sabotaging her initial attempts to get justice. Or even someone to simply tell those fucking girls to knock it off.

All three of them had been there, she was certain. Madison's evil little giggle, and a sound of satisfaction that could only have come from the arch-betrayer Emma, proved that to her. They must have been setting up their latest '_prank_' for weeks. The sight of the garbage and bloody waste in her locker, and the wave of rotting stinking almost visible _stench_ that had rolled out when she'd opened the door, showed that the stuff had to have been in there probably over the entire Christmas break. And there was so _much_ of it that it couldn't possibly have been only one day's worth, it was something they'd been collecting for quite a long time. More than long enough to show it was very definitely premeditated and not a spur of the moment thing.

All that had gone through her appalled mind the moment she'd laid eyes on the crap, and even as her rage rose to the forefront, overcoming the self-control she'd forced on herself for months and months of unwarranted attacks, she'd found herself violently shoved into the stuff. The door had slammed behind her and she'd distinctly heard a click as the lock was engaged, even over the disorientation of both the ghastly smell and smashing her head on the rear wall of the metal coffin.

It had taken her a few seconds to recover enough to kick backwards as far as she could with an inarticulate growl of fury, and by then it was too late. The door was, although not all that thick, not thin enough that a fifteen year old beanpole could kick it off its hinges, especially with so little leverage. Even in a killing rage, which by that point she was.

She got it from her father. He was calm and reasonable _right_ up to the point when very abruptly he wasn't. People tended to remember those times, and go well out of their way to avoid a repeat. She took after him in more than her height, having far more self control than most people suspected. Partly that was down to not wanting to disappoint her mother, who had always said it was important to keep your temper under control and _think_, rather than just stomp around in a foul mood.

Remembering that advice had helped over the years since the elder Hebert had passed on, through the depression that both she and her father had suffered, and still suffered from, and then over the last close to two years of absolute hell caused by her former best friend and the two psychos who followed her around.

It would have been so easy to lose it, punch Emma in the eye, and get at least a little satisfaction from that. She'd been tempted over and over, but every time she found her hand curling into a fist, two things stopped her; the look of disappointment her mother would have given her, and the knowledge that Sophia would then have kicked her ass. The other girl had a lot more muscle than she did, after all.

Even so, it would almost have been worth it. And she knew that blind rage could cause a lot of damage. Fury had a power all its own. Not necessarily in a _good_ way, but still…

Somehow, after all the shit she'd just taken without reacting, she hadn't snapped and burned the entire fucking school down. Even though in her darker moods at three AM she'd spent a lot of time working out where the best place to pour the gas would be, and how to arrange an ignition source and an alibi.

She gagged again as a fresh wave of stink rolled over her at a slight movement, and decided then and there that someone was going to _die _for this.

However, that particular thought was pushed to the side as she kept staring upwards. A number of things entered her mind, slightly reducing the overwhelming feelings of anger, disgust, and injustice that had been there.

There were a number of problems with what she was experiencing, outside the sheer ghastliness of the entire locker full of rotting waste.

One of the main ones being, how the hell could she possibly be lying flat on her back on what felt like a concrete floor, staring fifteen feet up at a similarly concrete ceiling with a number of odd looking lights in it, while still being in her locker?

And why did she feel so light?

And what was that noise?

After mulling all these things over somewhat dizzily, still disorientated from the blow to her forehead which was dully aching, the overwhelming smell which was like trying to breathe while immersed in a septic tank, and extremely confused by the whole '_where am I' _bit of the entire situation, Taylor rolled her head to the right. She could make out in the rather dim and uneven lighting a wall about twenty feet away, made once more of the same stained and old-looking concrete.

Repeating the exercise in the other direction, while trying to ignore the awful squishing sound as the stuff that was trapped under her head gave way in a revolting manner, she saw the exact same thing.

Several seconds passed while she tried to work out what was going on. The smell was giving her a hard time and she wasn't getting used to it at all, if anything it was getting worse. Her head was also hurting like hell, which didn't help the clarity of her thoughts. And over all of that was a burning rage that made her breathe more rapidly than at the moment was entirely advisable, considering the conditions.

She closed her eyes and very slowly counted backwards from fifty, syncing it to her heartbeat which was thundering in her ears, as she tried to regain some semblance of control. It helped a bit, the feelings of anger damping down and her heart-rate slowing, which in turn caused her headache to subside enough that she no longer felt like she was going to pass out. When she was as calm as she could manage under the circumstances, she opened her eyes again and looked around once more.

The scene hadn't changed. Still concrete below, above and to the sides of her, still the same slightly flickering and subtly wrong lighting, and still that weird feeling of lightness. And the peculiar and somewhat disturbing sounds on the threshold of hearing, coming from somewhere in the distance.

Taylor raised a hand to her head, feeling _things_ peel off her arm and drop to the floor, then felt her brow. There was a fairly large lump there, proof of how hard she'd hit the inside of her locker. Once again she vowed bloody vengeance.

Her mother would understand. Sophia needed to die. Preferably painfully.

Dropping her arm to the floor, she felt around, finding that it definitely was concrete or stone of some sort. Painfully sitting up, she looked down at herself, gagged at the sight of things that should never exist outside a medical waste bin, and raised her eyes again. She peered around.

"What the fuck is going on?" she mumbled under her breath. The inspection of her surroundings showed she was in the middle of a large room, entirely made of concrete, aside from directly in front of her where there was a big metal door that looked like something out of a movie. It was rusty and damp, with faded paint on the dark surface that was almost illegible due to what looked like age and neglect. In the dim lighting she had to squint and even then couldn't really see it properly.

Reaching up she adjusted her glasses, only then realizing that one lens was cracked. "Oh, you bitches are going to _pay_ for this," she snarled. Not only had they pulled of that fucking locker thing, but then they'd taken her and dumped her inside some old warehouse or something after she passed out from the stench? That was so far past '_too far_' she didn't have the words to describe it.

Dying was too good for them. Dying in _pain_ was called for. Possibly on fire.

Looking around again, Taylor tried to work out where the bitches had taken her. Maybe some sort of old cold storage room or something? The place was obviously industrial, based on the pitted concrete, heavy duty lighting, and exposed power conduits and other infrastructure. She'd seen the same sort of thing many times at her dad's workplace, although the people there actually looked after their buildings. Whoever owned _this_ place looked like they hadn't done any maintenance for decades.

There were piles of metal crates against the rear wall, at least half of them lying open and bent like someone had smashed their way in. They ranged in size from about the dimensions of a microwave oven to something large enough to get a small car inside, and again had faded and scarred painted labels across them She could see something that appeared to be a logo of sorts, which seemed to be present all over the place, including when she double checked, on the door.

All in all it gave the impression of somewhere that hadn't been visited for twenty or thirty years. She could hear dripping water somewhere in the dark to the side, and looking at the lights above her could tell that they were on their last legs. If this was one of the abandoned warehouses on the docks it was something of a miracle that they worked even this well. The power should have been cut years ago as far as she knew.

Finally feeling able to stand up, and finding that her anger had subsided more than she'd have expected due to the distraction of trying to work out her location, Taylor pushed herself to her feet, then nearly fell over again as she managed to do that far more easily than she'd expected.

"What…?" She looked down at her feet, then experimentally hopped into the air.

"Holy _shit!_" she squawked in shock as she went noticeably higher than she should have. The _really_ strange thing was that she _fell_ more slowly than was correct too. "That's… impossible?"

Trying again had the same result. "OK, what's going on?" she demanded of no one. Why was gravity playing silly buggers? Was she in some bizarre Tinker-made place? If so, how the hell had Emma and her co-conspirators managed to find it, and get her here in the first place?

Struck by that thought, she looked at the floor where she'd been lying which had a large mound of what she'd been lying _in_, something she was trying very hard not to think about. A disgusting liquid was seeping out of it, and spreading out across the concrete. She could also see dust, what looked like ash, random bits of detritus scattered about such as small fragments of metal and plastic… The one thing she _couldn't_ see was the weird part.

No footprints.

Turning in a circle, she checked carefully, but could see no evidence at all that anyone but herself had been in here for years. There was no sign of how she could have been carried in, no footprints, drag marks, or anything else. The dust and other stuff underfoot was entirely undisturbed except in a small radius around her current position, which she'd done herself.

"This doesn't make any sense," she finally grumbled to herself. "How did I get here? And where _is_ here anyway?"

Jumping again, just to double check, she wondered anew at the odd sensation of falling too slowly. It was extremely disconcerting, in more ways than one. The implications were that there was some Parahuman involvement to what was going in, which seemed to suggest that either those fucking girls had help of a nature she hadn't expected, or someone _else_ was responsible for this part of her own personal hell.

Why that would happen, she didn't have a clue. But then, she still didn't know why Emma had turned on her either.

'_Fuck it. I need to get out of here and get home_,' she thought to herself. '_Figuring out who did what can wait until I can get a gallon of gas and a lighter._' She was in no mood to be sensible any more. It seemed to her that the time had most definitely come for a touch of the old ultraviolence, as that book her mother had taken away from her when she was eight had put it.

She was aware at the back of her mind that she should have been terrified, but she'd had so much _shit_ flung at her over the last year and a half that she'd just run out of fucks to give as far as being scared went.

She was _angry_. And someone was going to _pay_ for that.

And when _she_ was done with them, she'd tell her dad. Then they'd _really_ have something to be worried about.

Winslow was going to be lucky to still be there next week.

Taking her hoodie off she used the small number of almost clean parts of it to wipe the worst of the crap off her, then shook her head and dropped the now soiled past recovery garment onto the pile of waste and moved away from it. She stumbled a few times due to the unexpected bounciness of her steps, but managed to compensate fairly quickly. While not being in particularly good condition she'd always had better than average balance and didn't find it too hard. She _was_ extremely puzzled about how such a thing could happen, though. It wasn't her imagination, when she'd dropped her hoodie it had fallen too slowly as well, so whatever was going on was real.

It definitely pointed at some sort of Parahuman involvement but that just made the entire thing that much stranger, and more worrying.

Deciding that she couldn't do anything about it right now and it was more important to get out and get home, she headed for the door. Reaching it she prodded the thing, finding it was very solid and rather damp metal, which didn't have any give in it at all when she thumped it with a fist. The thing was clearly pretty thick, more so that seemed reasonable.

Examining it she saw it seemed to split down the middle, and as far as she could tell probably retracted into the walls for some reason. There was a block of machinery above each half that clearly drove the mechanism and she could see where the doors would slide inside the thick walls. It looked more like something out of a movie the more she studied it.

Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any way to persuade it to open. There was no handle, or obvious switch panel, or anything else of that nature. Hitting it again, then kicking it, she glared at the thing for a minute or so, trying to work out what to do. With no phone, not that it would work inside here in all probability, she couldn't even call her dad and get him to come and get her. She was on her own for now, and didn't particularly feel like sitting around waiting for either Emma and her cronies to come back, or whatever Tinker owned this place.

Or, for that matter, for some random Merchant or whatever.

After a few dark mutterings about the parentage of one Sophia Hess, Taylor had a thought and looked carefully at the motors or whatever they were that seemed to drive this annoying impediment to her escape. She saw there was what looked to be a power cable coming out of the mechanism and running across the wall to one side. Tracing it with her eyes, she followed it all the way to the side wall, along that, and down behind one stack of crates.

'_Damn it,_' she thought irritably. '_Who piles all this stuff in front of a door control? Assuming that's what's on the other end of the cable, of course._' Stopping in front of the pile she inspected it. Several of the smaller ones had fallen or been dropped, and were broken and dented on the floor, while the rest seemed to have been shoved into the corner without any concern for ease of access or any sane storage method. It was like some idiot had just tossed them there.

Bending down she picked up one of the smaller empty ones, finding it wasn't as heavy as she'd expected, and tilted it a little so she could see the faded label on the side in the inadequate lighting.

'_U..._' She rubbed the dirt off the paint. '_...is that an A… C? UAC? I wonder what that is?_' The 'A' seemed to be a weird graphic rather than a normal letter, in the style of a company logo, but she didn't recognize it. The same logo was on the door, the paint there so damaged that it was nearly unrecognizable.

Looking inside the crate she found it empty except for traces of some sort of foam lining which had elderly grease marks on it. After turning it over in her hands for a moment, wondering what all the other codes written on it along with a strange looking sort of barcode thing meant, she shrugged and tossed it to the side. It clanged across the floor making her wince with the racket, which echoed horribly in the concrete room.

When the sounds died down, she sighed and started moving the remaining crates, trying to make enough of a gap that she could squeeze in behind them and hopefully find some way to open the door. They were easier to move than she expected, until she remembered the odd gravitational effects this place seemed to be suffering from.

'_Useful, I guess_,' she mused as she heaved one of the larger ones to the side, dragging it across the floor with a scraping sound. It was clearly still full of something. '_I wonder what's in this thing?_'

Moving a few more, she finally managed to stick her head into the gap behind the last one, the largest of the lot, and barely make out in the near-complete darkness back there a box on the wall which the cable terminated in. To her relief it seemed to have several small LEDs lit on it, which suggested it was active. Hopefully it would have a nice and simple button helpfully labeled '_Open_' on the middle of it.

Pulling her head out, she braced her foot on the wall and heaved on the crate. Nothing at all happened. '_Fuck_.' She tried again, pulling as hard as she could. '_FUCK!_'

The damn crate was too heavy. She couldn't move it at all. After a couple more tries, she growled and kicked it, then hopped around swearing for a while. Her sneakers weren't up to the job of kicking a ton of metal box out of the way and she was no Brute either.

Sitting on one of the smaller boxes she glared at the big one standing between her and freedom. This would not stand. Somehow she was going to have to shift the fucking thing, but how? She didn't have any tools, she wasn't strong enough to move it as she'd found out just now, and it wasn't like there was any help around.

'_Maybe I can empty it?_' she thought, getting to her feet and walking around it while inspecting it. '_If I can get it open, that is.._.'

After a few minutes, she finally found what looked like some sort of latch mechanism on the side of the crate, disguised well enough that it was barely visible. Running a finger over it she tried to work out how it operated, but it took another five minutes to discover that she could press hard in the right place and a small handle-thing would pop out. That could then be turned a hundred and eighty degrees to open the latch.

Based on that one, she quickly found three more down the side, and another four on the other side. When she'd opened the last of them, she jumped out of the way as the entire front of the crate separated from the rest of it and crashed to the floor, barely missing her.

"That was close," she commented to no one, before turning to see what was inside the seven foot high crate.

Her eyes widened.

"Holy _shit_..."

Following a considerable amount of staring, she finally reached out and gently touched the gleaming dull greenish-black surface of what appeared to be an honest to god suit of _power armor_ that was standing upright in the crate, strapped in place. Clipped to the walls of the box were several other items straight out of a PRT brochure, including a _very_ impressive sort of rifle-type weapon, the look of it making it abundantly obvious it wasn't even close to normal technology.

Apparently she'd found some Tinker's stash of toys, and whoever it was made stuff that would make Armsmaster himself envious.

Taylor gaped at the contents of the box for some time, before she finally noticed a thick manual in a pocket on the wall. Curiosity overriding everything else as her reading instincts kicked in, she reached for it. Moving to a position directly under one of the flickering lights, she raised her head as she heard something odd. The strange sounds she'd been intermittently hearing got louder momentarily, something making a sort of grunting noise like an animal. She couldn't work out where it was coming from but thought it was outside the room.

"Hello?" she called, in case it was help coming for her. "Is anyone there?"

There was no reply, and after a careful look around she decided it was probably a raccoon or something scuttling around in the air vents, assuming this place even _had_ air vents.

"OSHA violations _everywhere_," she muttered. "Dad would freak out." Returning her attention to the manual she studied the front cover. "What the hell is the Union Aerospace Corporation?" She'd never heard of it.

The image on the cover was of the power armor in the crate, and gave it a long military-looking identity number. It seemed to be a **UAC Mk. 9 Mod. 16 WC/04/2147-92B**, whatever that was.

She looked at the armor again. "Yeah, I'm calling it power armor. Not a Mk.9 whatever."

Flipping the manual open, she started reading, her interest piqued despite her situation and the suppressed but still boiling under the surface anger deep down. It wasn't every day you found Tinker tech just lying around, after all. 

* * *

_Three hours and nineteen minutes later:_

"**_Mars?!_**"


	2. DOOMed II: Still DOOMed

Still perched on the crate she'd been using as a chair for hours now, Taylor stared blankly at the much larger one and the power armor within, which was highlighted by small lights scattered around the open end of the box. She absently wondered what was powering them since it was obvious that the crates, and this entire facility, had been here for a long time without anyone tending to it. The sheer amount of dust and decay all about her proved that. It must have been at least ten or twenty years, she thought, based on memories of similar buildings in Brockton Bay she'd seen with her father.

But that paled into insignificance when compared to the information she'd found in the manual that had been with the suit in the crate. Initially she'd skipped over the copyright date and other such information, having not really thought much about it, and had just gone for the first page of real information. It was only when, two thirds of the way through the several hundred pages of oddly fascinating data held in the book, her attention had been distracted by various terms she didn't recognize and couldn't immediately work out from context.

Most of the manual was surprisingly understandable, especially impressive bearing in mind that she had no former experience of this sort of thing, but she'd run into an entire section about hostile environment use including in toxic atmospheres, high or low temperatures and pressures, and zero gravity situations. That, along with some slightly unusual language constructions, had led her to wonder when and where the thing had been printed, so she'd flipped right back to the inside of the front cover.

** _User and Maintenance Manual  
Mk. 9 Mod. 16 WC/04/2147-92B Series_ **

** _Classification TOP SECRET  
Security Level 7 or higher required_ **

_Union Aerospace Corporation_  
_Advanced Military Research and Development Division_  
_Hellas Plain_  
_Mars_

_Copyright © 2147 UAC Technical Publications_  
_All rights reserved._

She'd stared at that date for over a minute, her thoughts grinding to a complete standstill, then moved up to the location and pretty much suffered the human equivalent of a computer blue-screening.

Mars.

That was… _impossible_.

Wasn't it?

And a date that was a hundred and thirty six years into the future, yet was pretty obviously at least twenty years in the _past_ from where she was sitting. Possibly more.

Possibly _much_ more.

…

How the _fuck_ could she have traveled over a century into the future _and_ millions of miles through space, from _her school locker?_ It was _insane._

Taylor simply couldn't put all the information she'd discovered into a coherent whole. She had no memory of anything that could possibly result in her current predicament, and couldn't think of any plausible, or for that matter, _implausible, _way for Emma and her two bitches to have done it either. They were only school kids, same as she was. None of them could possibly be capable of booting Taylor through time and space, nor did it seem likely that they'd know anyone who _could_. Or would, for that matter. Even assuming some sort of weird-ass Parahuman power that could pull it off, which seemed pretty unlikely to start with, _why_ would someone do it? And to her? She was nobody.

Her thoughts circled around and around as she tried to work out if this was real, how it could have happened if it was, and what she could do about it. If anything.

Strangely enough the part that was giving her the most trouble at the moment was the idea of being on _Mars_. Time travel was pretty weird, true, but thinking that she'd popped up in an abandoned warehouse on an entirely different planet was so far past weird that the word didn't do it justice.

Although…

She held the manual out at shoulder height and dropped it, watching as it fell to the floor. It took noticeably longer than it should have done. As far as she could remember Mars had a gravity a bit less than half that of Earth, and it looked to her at a glance like the manual fell about half the normal speed. That was one point in favor of her current location being what the manual implied.

Shivering a little, she wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the book on the floor, trying not to scream in frustration and worry. Her rage was being suppressed by the sheer bizarreness of the situation she found herself in, although at some low level she could feel it building again. Mainly because this was all so totally unfair. She'd done everything she could to deal with things through massive unrelenting torment and not only was her reward to be half drowned in bloody waste, but somehow she'd been flung through time and space into the bargain? And even taken the fucking waste _with _her.

It was _infuriating_. And somehow she just _knew_ that Emma would be looking smug about it if she was here.

She wondered how long ago her former friend had died.

That set her off on the horror of the thoughts that _everyone she'd ever known_ was dead. Long, long ago.

"Dad," she whispered, tears streaming down her face. She hadn't even told him what was going on, and he'd probably lived the rest of his life never knowing what happened to her.

The thought of that was so gut-wrenching that she abruptly raised her head and screamed, in grief, rage, and horror.

When she finally came back to her senses some time later, she was huddled on the floor next to the crate she'd been sitting on, rocking back and forth and holding herself. She had no idea how long she'd been doing that.

It took at least another twenty minutes of trying to pull herself together before she managed to force the thoughts of her parents out of her mind and stand up. She looked at the pile of crap on the floor where she'd woken up and glared at it so hard she was mildly surprised it didn't vaporize from the sheer fury she was now feeling. '_I got here somehow. There's a way back. There has to be. And I will _**_find _**_it. No matter how long it takes or what I have to do, I'm going home. Fuck the universe, fuck time travel, fuck everything. _**_I am going home._**'

She burned that thought into her mind. It was going to happen. As long as she kept thinking that, it _was_ going to happen.

Somehow.

After a couple of minutes, Taylor wiped her eyes on the fouled sleeve of her shirt, not even really noticing the blood and smell now, and turned to the huge open crate with a sense of determination in her heart. "Right. Move crate, open door, find out what the hell is on the other side. Little steps. Can't move the crate, it's too heavy. So I either need to make it lighter or get stronger."

Contemplating the power armor, a grim smile grew on her face. "I know how to do both things at once, I think..." she mumbled, bending down and retrieving the manual again. Turning pages until she found the right section, she studied '_Initial configuration and activation of system for new user_.'

Yeah.

This was going to be simple enough. 

* * *

"This is _not simple!_" Taylor glared at the power armor, then shoved as hard as she could. The monstrously heavy machinery rolled far enough to the side that she was able to slide out from under it, then stand up, rubbing her ribs and swearing under her breath. "Fucking idiot fucking UAC fucking engineers who didn't fucking think that someone might need to unload this fucking armor without any fucking _help!_" she growled, limping back to the crate. Finding out how to remove the restraints that held the large armor set in place in its box hadn't been too hard.

Jumping out of the way as the damn thing promptly lunged for her and knocked her flat on its way to the floor had been just that little bit past her ability and reactions as it turned out.

She hadn't expected it to simply fall over.

Luckily she'd got just far enough of the direct line of fire that, combined with the lower gravity, she was only bruised rather that dealing with broken ribs, but she was still not even slightly happy about it. Rubbing her left side which she was certain would have some impressively black and blue marks sooner or later, she studied the remaining stuff in the box, then turned to regard the prone armor set.

Then she picked up the now well thumbed manual and leafed through it. "Ah. Tool set MK-14/S/162. Why not just call it the damn tool kit?" Walking into the crate, which was big enough to almost double as a maintenance shed for the power armor, she looked around. The dim greenish lighting which emanated from strips set into the walls was just bright enough to let her read the labels. "Honking big gun. Ammo for honking big gun. Grenade things… I think. Medical packs? Must be, red cross on them. Spare parts… AHA! Tool kit." She grabbed the heavy plastic case and yanked it free of the clamps on the wall, then took it out to the armor. Kneeling down she put the manual next to her, then with some effort flipped the catches on the tool kit and opened it.

Inside the two foot square box were a large array of tools and instruments, some of which she recognized and some of which looked like something Armsmaster would have salivated over. She picked up one small electronic device and inspected it, finding what looked like the power switch after a few seconds. Flipping it resulted in the device lighting up with a polite '_bing!_' sound, then a display showing an error message she couldn't work out at all. Shrugging, she turned it off again and put it back where it lived.

Sitting back on her heels she grabbed the manual and read the relevant section again, nodding intermittently, and occasionally referring to the tool kit. Some time later she smiled.

"OK, so I need _this_ thing, and this one, and two of these, and one of these, and _that_." Taylor plucked the relevant odds and ends out of the kit and, while glancing between the diagrams in the documentation and the power suit, connected them to the relevant locations. It took some time and a lot of careful checking but in the end when she turned on the thing that the manual called a '_configuration override interface module_' the display on it went through a long diagnostics sequence that matched what the book said.

The girl smiled as the armor started to emit a faint hum, right on the threshold of hearing, and several small lights came on in various places. "So_ that_ works. Great. What next?"

Quite a lot as it happened. She was beginning to get the impression that there was probably a lot of training involved in doing what she was doing, and just reading the manual wasn't the ideal method to learn on the fly. If nothing else the sheer number of warnings about what _not_ to do was somewhat worrying. That said, it was working, and she was being careful to memorize as much of it as she could as she went along. The knowledge was bound to come in handy one day.

Who knew, if she… _when_ she got home, she might be able to sell some of the things she was learning. It was as good as Tinker tech, but it was also _better_, since it was real engineering and not powers bullshit. The manual did after all go into quite a lot of the theory behind much of what the suit used, and she was fairly certain that a 'micro fusion cell' was probably pretty advanced.

There were two spares of that particular unit in the crate. The specifications in the book gave numbers that seemed pretty impressive to her admittedly fairly limited knowledge of the subject. A megawatt was quite a large amount of power, she remembered, and the things produced a lot of them.

Hopefully she could drag some of this stuff home with her. She'd found it, and as there was no one around who seemed to care about it, that seemed to her to mean she could keep it.

It wasn't like anyone was telling her she_ couldn't…_

Almost enjoying herself in a sort of furious and terrified way, she kept working for what must have been a couple of hours. She'd long since lost track of time, not that she had the vaguest idea what time it had been when she woke up in the first place, and was not only very thirsty by now but starving too. But eating and drinking was something that was going to have to wait until she got out of this room, and moving the stupidly heavy crate was a prerequisite for that.

And using this power armor was probably the only practical method available for her to achieve that goal.

So she had to get it turned on, get inside it, and move the fucking box.

Suppressing her hunger pangs, Taylor persisted, and eventually finished the last step of a completely ridiculous checklist. Everything was as it should be according to the manual, so she did the relevant actions to finally initialize the armor systems. A fairly long series of messages scrolled past on the screen of the device she was holding and the hum from the armor grew louder, deepened to below the level she could still hear it, making things rattle a little for a moment, then seemed to stop.

The armor beeped twice and the back slid open, while the helmet detached and rolled a little to the side.

"_Finally!_" she smiled. "It worked."

Strictly speaking the manual said that the armor should have been on a stand that wasn't included in the other stuff that she'd found in the box, but lacking that, she was going to have to somehow squeeze into it on the floor. It was probably not intended for a fifteen year old girl, admittedly. Luckily she was taller than average for her age and gender so it wasn't impossible to use the thing, and she was slender enough to manage to wriggle inside without the rest of the hardware that was normally required. Standing up she looked down at herself, then at the crates around her.

'_Wonder if there's anything that I can clean the rest of this crap off with in those?_' she thought. Moving over to the nearest one, she peered at the label again. The manual had given her enough background information on the jargon that UAC seemed to like that she was able to puzzle out quite a lot more now than she'd managed to begin with.

Strangely, she'd found learning this sort of thing much easier than she'd expected. It seemed to come naturally to her, which was a slight surprise, but welcome under the circumstances.

'_OK, that's… um… probably something like bolts, if I'm reading this right_,' she thought, studying the acronyms. '_That one is… more bolts. Why did they need so many bolts? This one is… ammunition. Great. If I need to shoot anything I've got lots of bullets. Plasma. Whatever the hell that fucking thing fires_.' She moved around the room examining the boxes, finding enough ammo and weapons to fight a small war, plenty of power cells for something or other, yet more bolts, an entire crate full of tools that looked like perfectly normal wrenches and sockets to her, a small one full of more manuals which she moved to the side for later perusal, another one containing some sort of futuristic equivalent of USB sticks as far as she could make out, and finally one that had all sorts of cleaning supplies in it.

'_Thank fuck for that,_' she thought as she opened it, the last latch needing a solid blow from one of the wrenches from the crateful she'd found to release. Lifting the lid she looked at the contents, seeing the UAC logo on many of the smaller containers inside, along with several more she didn't recognize at all. After unpacking half the contents onto the floor she found a box of what looked for all the world to be perfectly normal baby wipes, which she quickly opened and made use of.

When she finished, she was standing in her underwear but otherwise as clean as could be managed without a proper shower.

She'd have cheerfully killed someone for a shower by now.

And some food.

And some water.

Lacking any of those, she returned to the armor and knelt down again, then contorted herself enough to get both feet into the open back. Five minutes of grunting and swearing later she finally got both arms inside and her head through the neck ring. Feeling like an idiot, she said, "Initiate user biometric lock process Alpha Two Tango execute," while hoping it worked.

There was a faint hiss from somewhere inside and something poked her in the hip, feeling like someone had stuck a needle into her. "OW! Son of a goddamn bitch fucking UAC bastards!" she squawked. The documents had said the armor would take a DNA sample during activation but it hadn't mentioned _stabbing_ her!

A few seconds later, she heard a confirmation tone sequence, then the cool air on her back vanished as the armor closed up. A moment later there was another pain right at the base of her neck, which made her yelp and swear creatively. Immediately following that, she felt it come alive around her, causing her to grin. "Excellent," she said gleefully, moving her right arm and finding that the armor moved as fluidly as she could have hoped for, so smoothly and quickly it was like she wasn't wearing it. There was no lag, and no weight on her limbs at all.

She wondered if Armsmaster's armor, or Dragon's, was this good.

Carefully rolling over onto her back, hearing the armor grate on the concrete, she then sat up, lifting her metal-clad hands in front of her face and looking at them in wonder. She made a fist, then wiggled all her fingers. Everything seemed to work, far better than she'd expected.

Standing up as easily as if she wasn't wearing close to half a ton of machinery, she lifted one leg, then put it down and repeated the process with the other one, before very cautiously hopping on the spot. Even with a bare minimum of effort she nearly hit the ceiling, then almost fell over when she landed. "Holy crap!" she said in shock. Clearly the armor's specifications were entirely real.

"Well, that'll make this easy," she smiled, clomping over to the crate. Moving down the side of it to the wall, she braced one hand on the concrete while wrapping the other around the back of the huge metal box, then heaved. The crate grated across the floor like it was made of cardboard.

"Yes!" she crowed in glee. "I did it!"

Feeling briefly happy for the first time in many hours, she pushed the box a little further away from the wall, then slipped behind it to examine the keypad she found there. As she'd hoped, it only had two buttons on it, one marked **OPEN** and the other one **CLOSE**.

She pressed the open one without another thought.

From the other side of the room she heard a loud clunk, then a grinding noise that rose in pitch, before there was a sort of crunching sound and a rumble. She emerged from behind the crate in time to see the door slowly slide open, splitting down the middle as the gap widened.

Her smile of satisfaction changed rather suddenly into a look of shock when a head-sized fireball roared through the opening directly at her.

"Jesus _Christ!_" she screamed as she dived out of the way, her enhanced strength due to the armor carrying her half-way across the room. "What the _fuck?_"

The humanoid monster that followed the fireball into the room made her stare in horror.

It was fair to say that this was _not_ what she'd been expecting.

The ghastly thing, which looked like a distorted and skinned human that had three-fingered, clawed hands and armored sections on it in various places, emitted a cry of triumph and jumped at her, covering a preposterous distance in one move almost too quick to see. Reflexively she ducked again, while swinging at it defensively with one hand.

The wet crunching sound that met this action was followed by a crash on the other side of the room, and another cry, this one gurgling into silence. Opening her eyes which she'd closed as she swung without thinking about it, she stared at the… whatever it was.

Which was now a _dead_ whatever it was, lying in the wreckage of one of the crates she hadn't opened yet, a number of smaller containers scattered around it.

"Fuck..." she breathed, straightening up cautiously. Very slowly walking over to it, she stopped at a safe distance and studied the thing. It was even less human-looking up close, the enormous claws on the hands and feet combined with a sort of triangular face leading to a jaw full off fangs giving the impression of something lethal that had really wanted her head to chew on.

"What the _hell_ is _that?_" she wondered out loud, horror-struck. She'd never seen anything like it, even in history class about Nilbog and his bizarre minions.

Looking at her gauntleted fist she saw it was dripping with gore. There was a deep impression on the side of the thing's head that perfectly matched her fist. She'd obviously managed to hit it completely by accident hard enough to kill it instantly.

A grunting sound from behind her made her whirl around and stare suspiciously at the open door.

She suddenly had a pretty good idea what had been making that noise.

And by the sound of it, there were more than one of these things out there.

A lot more.

After a couple of appalled seconds, she rushed behind the crate and slapped the close button, then peered around the box to watch the door rumble shut again, not relaxing until it closed with a thud. Then she went back to the middle of the room and stared at the dead monster for a while.

Her face hardened.

Fuck it. Fuck them. Whatever they were.

She'd made a promise to herself and she was keeping it, martian monsters or no martian monsters. Taylor looked around, spotted the helmet for her armor, and retrieved it, carefully fitting it in place. It locked down with a click and a number of heads up displays came on, along with the view of the room brightening to normal levels, which was a bit of a shock after getting used to the dimness for so long.

Feeling slightly safer now that the armor was fully donned, she thought for a while. Deciding that she needed to finish seeing what she had to work with, she went back to checking the crates. It was only when she'd gone thought all of them that she thought to see what had been in the one the monster had crushed. Picking up one of the smaller containers she read the label on it, before her eyes widened.

"UAC Emergency Ration Pack?" she said out loud, before sighing. "Why the hell didn't I look in _this_ one six _hours_ ago?"

Her stomach gurgling like a drain after a storm, she ripped the pack open and examined the contents, before removing her helmet again and sniffing one of the blocks of dried something or other that was included. The foil packet it had come out of claimed it was beef stew. It looked more like road tar, but it smelled delicious. Although by this point even the road tar probably would.

Experimentally nibbling one corner, she read the outside of the ration pack box again. The expiry date was given as nearly fifty years after the packing date, which was 2140. She wondered if it was still good, not having any idea what the date actually was. Regardless, she was going to eat it. And a number of its friends.

When the first cube was on the way down, she opened the pouch labeled '_hydration pack'_ and drank the contents, finding it was basically water although it tasted like it had a little sugar and maybe some salt in it. Whatever, it was a massive relief to her parched throat. She finished the first ration pack in under ten minutes, and the second one in another twelve.

The third one took nearly twenty.

When she was finally full and no longer feeling like she wanted to eat her own feet, she sat on one of the smaller crates and thought for some time, glancing at the dead thing to the side every now and then. After a while, she nodded to herself, got up, put her helmet back on, and headed for the big crate. There was another manual she needed to read. 

* * *

Making sure that the last of the compartments in her armor were stocked with all the consumables she could load it with, and that everything else was in place, Taylor prodded the open button again. As the door slowly opened and the distant sounds of more monsters came through it, she hefted the energy rifle she was holding, flicked it on, and advanced on the portal to god knows what.

One way or another, she was going home, and screw anything that got in her way.

She left the room, walked down the corridor outside it, and went around the corner. The shooting started seconds later.


	3. DOOMed III: ReDOOMed

"Fuck fuck fuck _fuck!_"

Breathing heavily and wishing she was in better condition, Taylor ran like a bastard, taking long leaps in the low gravity and with the aid of her armor. It had initially taken her some time to not end up bouncing down the corridors like a heavily armed demented pinball, but over the last four days she'd managed to learn how to do it smoothly. Even so, she clearly wasn't the presumably highly trained soldier who was meant to be using the power suit and was paying the price.

Although, she'd have been dead a hundred times over by now _without_ it, so there was that.

The first encounter with what lay outside the room she'd found herself in had nearly made her scream. In fact, if she was honest to herself, she _had_ emitted a yelp of shock. But she had also found herself instantly much too busy to be scared, and seconds after _that_ way too angry to care anyway. The fucking monsters had just _poured_ out of various rooms and corridors, all of them charging her with eerie yowls and cries, while firing so many fireballs at her that the constant whooshing sound and explosions had nearly deafened her.

After the momentary terror, she'd enthusiastically returned fire, hosing the things down with blasts of brilliant plasma in a display that made it look like the fourth of July. To begin with, only about one in ten of her shots actually hit anything other than the scenery, and that was being generous. Luckily, while the monsters were not all that smart as far as she could tell, they weren't entirely idiots, and a lot of them immediately retreated. The remaining ones made the job less complicated, and her energy gun was capable of killing one with only a single shot, so eventually she'd wiped the first wave out. In the process she learned a lot, and after shoving a new energy cell into her weapon and stuffing the depleted one back into one of the apparently too large on the inside storage compartments in the armor, had kept going.

By now she was a crack shot with the weapon, and was getting to be pretty good at the armor systems. In the very brief pauses between random monster attacks she'd kept reading the various documents she'd brought with her, trying to work out what everything did. Some of it was still a mystery but she was now able to understand the various displays inside the helmet, and use the target assist system, which she wished she'd known about when she started on this mission to get home.

Still, better late than never.

She'd absently noticed that her anger at the whole crazy situation hadn't abated. If anything, it had grown to a steady background rage that was unlike anything she'd ever experienced before, almost burning cold now rather than the hot fury she'd had when she awoke. But the odd thing was that it also seemed to give her clarity of thought, and she was finding her memory for all the new things she'd learned seemed aided by it too. Somehow, she was managing to keep track of dozens of different critical aspects of all of this horrifically dangerous environment she'd been thrown into, was learning how to read the ground far more effectively than she'd ever have thought possible, even somehow anticipating a lot of the monster attacks before they started almost like she could feel them coming… It was weird, but she hadn't had any time to sit down and think about it so far.

The fucking monsters were _everywhere, _unremittingly hostile, and some of them were very sneaky. That first type was only the tip of an iceberg of ghastliness that steadily exposed itself as she penetrated deeper into the massive complex she'd found lay beyond that storage room. It seemed to go on forever, on multiple levels, and a lot of it was wrecked beyond the point she could easily pass, so she had to backtrack quite often to make any progress.

Progress towards _what_ she wasn't entirely certain, aside from some way to get home no matter what it took. She was perfectly prepared to wipe the damn things out to the last monster if that's what was required. And it well might be, since they _just kept coming_.

And some of the variants were _way_ worse than a distorted vicious little homunculus with a penchant for fireballs. Those things were basically the cannon fodder in her mind. Yeah, they'd be very dangerous to an unarmored person, and easily capable of simply tearing you to pieces even without needing their Blaster power, since they were strong, quick, and had claws the size of her fingers. But they were also not that tough, since a single plasma bolt killed one immediately, and more than a few times she'd managed to get two with one shot if they were standing in line. The plasma went right through them and blew a pretty impressive hole.

They weren't immune to their own abilities either. She'd seen several cases of '_friendly fire_' where one monster was incautious or overenthusiastic and managed to blast another one in the back. That had at least twice resulted in a bloody free for all where they'd wiped each other out while she watched incredulously. The things certainly didn't seem to work together aside from all wanting to kill her.

But as she'd progressed, she'd started running into much more dangerous and much smarter monsters. Like the ones chasing her at the moment. The intelligence of them increased the risk a lot, since these ones _would_ cooperate, and would lay traps a little more sophisticated that just screaming and leaping at her out of a dark room.

By now when that happened she was so inured to it she didn't even flinch, just reacted and either blew the thing's head off or simply punched it hard enough to pulp the bastard.

She _really_ liked the power armor.

So far she'd run across at least a dozen different monsters, with wildly different appearances, abilities, and tactics. She had no idea where the hell they were all coming from, but it seemed pretty obvious that the reason she hadn't found any actual people was most likely because the things had completely overrun this entire facility ages ago. The few times she'd found skeletal human remains they had all been fragmentary and looked very much like they'd been chewed on…

It must have happened a long time ago. As far as she could see more or less anything that wasn't plastic or metal had pretty much crumbled from age and decay. There were traces of paper here and there, in rooms that looked like they'd possibly been offices at one point, but almost nothing readable. It had made her wonder why the manuals were still fine, and a close examination showed they were actually printed on some sort of plastic stuff that looked like paper but was much tougher. Her best guess at this point was that this place had been exterminated a good fifty years ago at a minimum and possibly up to a century.

It amazed her that so much hardware was still intact and working. The power armor was fully functional according to all the tests she'd been able to run on it, all the other things she'd found in the crate with it were like new, and she was constantly stumbling across other odds and ends, many of which seemed to work. A lot of those things were weapons. By the looks of it the inhabitants of this place had put up a fucking big fight. There were holes in walls all over the place, a lot of the damaged sections were as likely to show damage from explosions as from the monsters, and she'd found some areas that were absolutely swimming in what looked like some weird sort of cartridge cases, along with piles of depleted energy cells. There was a lot of shrapnel from what she supposed had been grenades of some sort. As far as she could see, quite a lot of people had shot the fuck out of everything in sight.

The worrying part was that she got the distinct impression it hadn't helped…

And she was wondering why there were so _few_ remains. Judging by the size of this facility it must have had probably thousands of people in it at one point. Had most of them managed to evacuate before they were overrun? Hopefully, but she wouldn't want to bet on it based on the trace evidence.

Diving around a corner just as a huge green fireball shot past, she winced at the massive explosion it made when it blew a hole in the wall at the end of the corridor. This particular monster was far more aggressive than the little ones had been, stood about ten feet tall, and was a _much_ tougher opponent. It had been chasing her for nearly an hour now, and was fast enough to successfully evade her return fire so far. The only time she'd actually managed to hit it, it had roared in rage and barely slowed. She'd roared right back at it, emptied a power cell into the walls to slow it down, and legged it.

'_I need something heavier than this_,' she thought frantically, looking around for inspiration. The plasma rifle was a pretty impressive weapon, but against this particular creature wasn't going to cut it. As she'd explored she'd come across a lot of other weapons of various sorts, quite a number of which still worked, so she'd started collecting the better ones and all the ammo she could find. At first she'd wondered how she'd carry it all, but had found after a while, and to her considerable surprise, that it didn't seem to matter how much loot she put in the storage compartments on the outside of the armor which were designed for this exact purpose, they never appeared to fill up.

That explained something she hadn't really thought about when she left the initial room, having loaded the armor with everything in sight, including several cases of power cells, all the food, all the manuals, the contents of several crates that seemed to contain medical supplies of some sort, the tool kit and all the spares…

In retrospect she should have realized something weird was going on, but hadn't really thought much about it at the time, just assuming that the suit had big pockets. By now, she knew that the pockets were _far_ too big to be anything other than something like that cape Circus at home had. Somehow everything she was shoving in there wasn't actually in the armor itself, it was somewhere else. She'd wondered at the description in the manual of a '_trans-dimensional logistical support module subsystem_' but hadn't been able to quite work out what it was talking about.

Now she knew. And it was probably the only reason she was still alive, as she'd have run out of ammo way too soon if she'd been forced to carry the cells in a more normal manner.

Whoever these UAC people had been, they were as good as any Tinker she'd ever heard of in some ways, and their tech was first rate. Their manuals were pretty decent too, although obviously having been written for someone who wasn't an untrained fifteen year old. That said, she thought she was doing very well, all things considered.

It wasn't what she'd planned on doing, certainly, but was turning out to be remarkably good therapy for some weird reason. Every time she thought about those fucking girls, a new wave of fury rose in her and she was able to immediately take it out on the nearest horrible monster.

Even as she thought this, some of the little red ones piled out of a darkened doorway to her right, screaming and hissing. She screamed right back, blew the head off the first one, kicked the second without breaking step hard enough to fold it over her foot with a crunch and fly into the wall, shot the third one in the gut, punched four and five in the head as she passed, and emptied the last few shots from the energy cell into the final three. The entire encounter took about six seconds and barely counted as a fight at this point in time. She hadn't actually slowed down in the slightest.

Another huge green fireball impacted behind her, hitting the remains of the little imps or whatever the fuck they really were and completely vaporizing them in a massive blast which blew shrapnel past her. She yipped and ran harder, bouncing off the wall and around the next corner while trying to pop the cell out and shove another one in. Dropping the empty cell to the ground with a clink she fumbled with the replacement, dropped it as well, swore viciously in a manner that would have either appalled or impressed her father, then concentrated on running. She needed to find some place to hide for a moment to reload, and catch her breath.

A weird howl from behind was joined by a second one at a different pitch, making her sweat. '_Oh, fuck, there's _**_two _**_of them now!_' she thought, checking the little mapping scanner display which she'd figured out how to use the day before. It was getting data from sensors all over the facility as far as she could determine, and building a map as she went, which it populated with little icons showing movement, which was invariably hostile. Unfortunately, it seemed that an awful lot of those sensors were dead now so the map had gaping holes in it, and the movement detector was anything but accurate. It gave a slight advantage in some places but certainly wasn't good enough to rely on. Presumably when it was designed it was more effective.

Right now, it seemed to be very good at telling her about things she'd already worked out for herself. Anything the armor's systems had scanned was shown in high resolution detail, but stuff in front of her was largely guesswork in her view. And sure enough, it was showing that there were two large moving icons following her, ones that she'd assigned to that particular monster.

'_God damn it,_' she thought, wishing she had Emma or Sophia handy to act as a decoy. She'd happily have thrown both of them to the monsters right now. And laughed.

The two monsters roared again.

"**_SHUT UP!_**" she screamed back, still running and looking around for somewhere to take cover. The mapper showed the corridor branched up ahead, one route curving more or less back until it broke up into random garbage, the other one turning sharp left and terminating in what looked like it might be some large rooms. Or more random garbage, of course. Deciding that it was worth a try, she went left and charged along the new corridor, smashing another little imp to pulp on the way with the stock of her weapon when it was stupid enough to drop from the ceiling onto her.

"Little fuckers," she grumbled, looking around frantically. "Aha!" There was a door ahead of her that was very heavily built, closed, and most importantly of all, showed a functional electronic lock on it. After some experimentation Taylor had become used to the locks and other equipment in this place and even as she skidded to a halt in front of it was punching in the sequence that made the door open. The lock beeped and the red **LOCKED** display changed to a green **OPEN** one, then there was a clunk followed by a familiar grinding sound. Most of the still powered doors worked, she'd found, but a lot of them were rather reluctant at first. Not surprising really if they'd been abandoned as long as she surmised they had. It was more remarkable that they worked at all.

"Come on, come on…" she muttered under her breath, while retrieving another power cell from her armor and shoving it into the gun, then arming it. The reassuring deep hum started up again as the weapon's display lit. The door grudgingly ground open, decades of detritus scraping in the mechanism, and as soon as the doorway was clear enough she squeezed through. Hitting the door close button with the back of her hand, she looked around quickly and carefully, panning her rifle about as she did. Nothing immediately jumped out at her, so she relaxed just a tiny amount, although still stayed alert.

With the amount of adrenaline running through her after a four day running battle, she probably _couldn't_ relax more than that, she mused as she looked around.

The door clunked shut and locked again with a solid metallic click. It was nearly as thick as the one on the room she'd woken up in, which should keep the pair of monsters following her out for at least a little while, she hoped.

"What the hell is _this_ place?" she mumbled, having developed a habit of talking to herself in lieu of anyone else to talk to. The room was large, perhaps a hundred feet across, and two stories high, with a walkway around the second story about twelve feet up. She looked suspiciously at it, then the ceiling above it, dim in the bad lighting. Only about a third of the lights were working at all, and several of _those_ were flickering a lot, so much of the room was rather gloomy and hidden in shadows.

She was very aware of what could hide in shadows. Most of the things that did had jumped out of those shadows at her at one point or another recently. Sure, they immediately died messily, but it was the thought that counted, and she considered shadows a threat as a result.

Slowly moving through the room, looking all around her and not neglecting to frequently glance up, she kept panning her gun around waiting for something to have a go at her. Somewhat amazingly nothing did, and by the time she'd reached the far side, she was reasonably sure this particular room was monster-free. At least for the moment.

Stopping, she kept glancing about, but spent most of her attention on the banks of computer displays in front of her. They were very futuristic, being more like holograms floating in space than any monitor she was familiar with, but she'd seen enough of this tech so far that she was becoming inured to it and no longer just gaped in amazement. Several of the projections were clearly faulty, the image breaking up or showing random icons, but a couple seemed functional, so she moved over to them and studied them. The familiar UAC logo was present in the upper corner of each, as it was all over the place in this base, but she ignored that in favor of the rest of the display.

The left projection was cycling through a whole series of images that seemed to be from security cameras around the facility, many of the images merely showing the words '_System Fault_' when they came up, presumably showing that the camera was broken, or missing entirely. Considering the amount of damage to this place that was hardly unexpected. Each image was accompanied by a reference number which seemed to locate the camera in question, and she watched for a while to see if there was any pattern to it. After some time she decided that the base was spread across at least forty levels based on the numbers, assuming the first digits were a level, which seemed likely based on the way the images were cycling. Taylor spotted several monsters on the images, two of which were one she'd not so far encountered, and both of these being on lower levels.

It agreed with her own impressions that the things got more vicious and dangerous the deeper she went.

The other projection was showing a display that appeared to be a map of the base, in three dimensions and different colors. It was much larger than she'd expected and far more complicated, she saw with some annoyance. Whatever computer was running this system seemed to still be updating the map over time, as she saw that a large percentage of the rooms and corridors on the map were marked as hazardous, damaged, in a couple of cases as flooded, and in one particular area near the bottom, radioactive _and_ flooded.

She wondered what the fuck had happened _there?_

Whatever, it didn't matter right now. Leaning closer she studied the display intently. After a couple of minutes, she looked at the console the image was floating above, searching for the correct interface port. Spotting it, she lifted her right hand and did the relevant mental action that told the suit to deploy what the manual called the '_high bandwidth data interface connection probe_' which was actually something like looked like a six inch long metal spike covered in tiny gleaming dots of light. It slid out from her wrist, and she poked it into the matching aperture on the console.

When she'd read the manual for the power armor, she hadn't really quite absorbed the fact that the '_subcutaneous neural induction tap_' it talked about was actually some sort of mind reading computer interface that the fucking thing would stick into the wearer the first time it was worn. That had been the pain she'd felt in her neck when she initially put the armor on, she'd realized a while later. It had taken her an embarrassingly long time to work out that quite a lot of the HUD displays she was seeing seemed to be responding to her wishes and needs, not just randomly popping up useful information by coincidence. At the first point she'd been able to take a half hour break in a small storage room that was monster-free, she'd reread that part of the manual, felt her neck and found a small flat lump apparently bonded to the bone, grumbled to herself, and put her helmet back on. It wasn't like she had any way to remove the thing and it was helping keep her alive, so she'd just live with it.

By now she was getting pretty good at using it, and could operate a lot of really cool features the armor provided merely by thinking at it. She wondered if Armsmaster's equipment had been able to do the same thing.

Issuing a few commands she downloaded the map data into her armor's systems, watching as her own display updated to incorporate the new information. It filled in a lot of the holes although there were still missing bits. The room she was in was marked as the level four central command center, and from what she could see there were at least five more similar installations throughout the enormous base. Right down at the bottom was a section that was described as the high security research area, with a part off to one side labeled '_experimental_ _dimensional transport lab._' That sounded like it might, possibly, be something she could find a clue to how she'd got here in.

Several of the locations were shown as requiring a physical high security access pass, and a few of them had '_Top Secret'_ designators too, with no other information given. That made her decide that one way or another she was going to get inside them and look around. Anything that was top secret was something she wanted a look at.

Possibly one of those labs had a time machine or something like that in it. If so, she wanted it.

Going through the rest of the data she found several storage areas that looked like they could have useful supplies in, and four armories, which she was _definitely_ going to visit. The more weapons the better, and she was running low on energy cells. Perhaps she should switch to one of the other weapons she'd acquired on the way? She'd found several slightly lower tech but still fucking impressive guns, including one monster rotary cannon thing that was so huge only the power armor let her pick it up at all. She'd been astounded that the apparently bottomless storage pockets the armor contained had accepted it, but hadn't questioned her good fortune, merely stored it away along with as many cases of ammo for it as she could locate.

While she was flipping through the various screens of data, both in her HUD and on the holo display, she heard a massive **_THUD! _**against the door, causing her to check the mapping unit. It was showing movement outside, which meant the monsters that had been chasing her had tracked her down. The ululating roar of rage backed that up, it was all too familiar and far, far too close.

Disconnecting from the base computer, she spun around to stare suspiciously at the door, her weapon aimed and ready. A moment later she consciously realized what she'd seen on the projected screen as she'd logged off and turned back to stare at the thing.

**09:45 2236-07-16**

It took Taylor a moment to come to terms with what was clearly a time and date. The projection seemed to have reverted to a default display once she'd closed the session, and the glowing blue figures floated under a slowly spinning UAC logo. Assuming the thing was right, she'd been pretty close in her estimate of how long ago this place had been overrun by monsters.

The screech from outside made her dismiss the time from her mind, since it wasn't important in the long run. The things trying to batter the door down and kill her were much more of an immediate problem. She watched the door vibrate as they attacked it, then heard several loud explosions from their plasma balls hitting the surface. The inside face of the metal portal began to glow a very dull red, and when she switched her view to the thermal imaging the suit provided, she could see it was heating up fast. Another internal command selected some sort of technology that let her see a short distance through solid objects, this vision mode showing a ghostly image of one of the big monsters pacing up and down outside, occasionally firing at the door again.

She wondered uneasily where the other one had got to now, and began to look carefully around, switching between light amplification, thermal, and whatever the seeing-through-walls mode was. There was still no sign of any hostile creature in the large room with her, but she clearly couldn't stay here much longer. The damn monster was bound to get in eventually if it kept up the attack, and she knew how persistent this type was.

Still, the door wasn't going to fail immediately, and seemed to have settled down to a slight glow, well below the point of melting, but probably far past the point the lock would still work. She could smell burning electronics and hot metal and assumed the mechanism that drove it was undoubtedly completely cooked by now. That meant she really needed to find another way out, so she turned back to the computer and plugged in again, then spent the next fifteen minutes poking around in the file-system looking for more useful information and downloading everything she could gain access to. The armor appeared to have a fairly comprehensive set of access credentials and could get through most security, although there were still sections that basically told her to fuck off.

"Aha," she mumbled, finally finding a more detailed set of plans of this entire section, which showed a lot of maintenance corridors and access hatches the original map hadn't. "OK, let's see… power conduit AN-12/W looks about big enough to get through. Now where the hell is… There. Access panel J3N/64. Which is…" She looked around. "Over there upstairs. Bet it's full of monsters."

That seemed likely. The little ones ended up _everywhere_. Like roaches, only a lot more dangerous.

She unplugged again and headed for the stairs to the second level, clomping up them and making the old metal vibrate under her boots, then moved along the catwalk to the access panel which looked like a part of the wall aside from a small notation on one corner. Inspecting it, she tried the special vision mode, which didn't show any movement on the other side, but did point out the presence of an empty space there. So it was definitely a hidden door. Feeling it, she eventually located a catch that was similar to the ones that had held the crate her armor had been shipped in closed, the thing nearly invisible to the eye but moving slightly when she passed her metal-clad fingers over it. Pressing hard in the right way, she was rewarded with a click and the latch popping out. Bending down she found the other one she'd guess would be there, popped it as well, then turned both of them and pulled.

Nothing happened, so after a moment, she pushed instead, finding this time that the panel sunk inwards about four inches, then slid a little to the side. She urged it further with a grating sound, to reveal a six foot square corridor lined with pipes and cables. When she cautiously stuck her head inside and looked both ways, she found there were small red emergency-style lights about every fifty feet along the ceiling, casting just enough illumination that normal eyesight would be able to navigate reasonably well. Several of them were out, but the remaining ones in conjunction with the low light mode of her armor would let her handle it fine.

The very low ceiling was more of an issue. The armor was close to seven feet tall, so she'd have to bend to get through, which would be a nuisance, but was something she'd just have to live with.

Pulling her head out she straightened up, then looked down at the main door. It was glowing more brightly as the huge monster on the other side kept firing at it. "Fucker doesn't give up easily," she grumbled, almost impressed. "Neither do I."

Checking her map, she examined the path the power conduit took, then slowly started to smile, in a way that if anyone had seen it would have made them start to back away. It looked very much to her like the access corridor went right over the main route on the other side of the door, and the plan showed another access panel that seemed to be immediately above where the monster was…

That gave her an idea.

About to turn back to enter the access route, she stopped when she spotted something on the other side of the room, only visible due to her elevated position. One of the consoles seemed to have several items sitting on it, including what appeared to be something bright yellow and about the size of a credit card, which looked an awful lot like the security pass she'd seen an image of in the computer records. The sort of pass that was needed to gain access to the high security areas somewhere far below her.

Quickly retracing her steps, she glanced at the by-now orange door as she headed to that console. Sure enough the yellow thing was indeed a security pass, one that had a code on that matched the record she'd seen. Quickly grabbing it and the other odds and ends next to it, she shoved the entire lot into her storage then hastily went back to the access panel and climbed through it, before closing it behind her. There was a fairly simple level mechanism to lock it from this side, which she used out of sense of caution and not wanting something to come in after her, then she awkwardly but as rapidly as possible consistent with being quiet made her way through the conduit.

Moments later she passed over the main corridor, looking down with the penetrating vision to see the monster still apparently firing at the door to the control room. A few more cautious steps brought her to an area where the corridor gave way to a larger area that wasn't really a room so much as a place where a number of main power cables and a lot of control equipment gathered together. It was tall enough that she could straighten up properly, which she immediately did, before locating the access panel that led into the ceiling of the corridor below her. This took the form of a sort of sliding trap door, which had a winch mounted to the ceiling above it, and was presumably how all the equipment in here had been brought in.

Checking it Taylor could see it was simple to open, being again just a level mechanism. Nodding to herself, she turned the plasma rifle off. It hadn't done the job so far, the thing battering at the door under her was apparently resistant to the shots from it as she'd already discovered, so perhaps it was now time for something else.

Very soon afterwards she was inspecting the fuck-off big gun she'd found earlier. It looked like something from a movie, even more than the plasma rifle, and probably weighed about a hundred pounds. There were a number of large barrels in a rotating mechanism, and a huge magazine underneath, along with two hand-grips, one on the top and one at the rear. Remembering something she'd read in the manual for the armor, she put it down very carefully, then dug out the documentation, flipping through it until she found the right section.

Sure enough, it showed an image of the weapon, which was apparently a '_UAC Armaments Division 0.50 caliber hypervelocity chain gun_. 'That sounded suitably dangerous, she thought with a grin. There was a documentation number on the page which referred to another manual, one she had a memory of packing away, so she dug around for that too, eventually finding it.

Quickly reading the thing while ignoring the roaring and explosions still coming from under her, she nodded every now and then, glancing between the gun and the page, until she was sure she understood how it worked. Putting the manuals away, she retrieved one of the very big ammo containers that had seemed to go with the weapon, fiddled with it until she worked out how to fit it, did exactly that, then picked the gun up again. Flicking the switch that armed it, she watched as her HUD came up with another weapon icon, along with a counter of how much ammo it had in it, which was 300 rounds.

Carefully maneuvering the enormous chain gun, she moved to the spot she felt was about right, prepared herself, then nudged the lever on the floor with one foot. The trap door groaned and moved to the side more rapidly than she'd expected, revealing the enormous monster below, caught in the middle of firing yet another of the virulent green fireballs at a now pitted and sagging door, molten metal running sluggishly down the surface. The thing whipped around at the sound above it, moving far faster that something that size should be able to, just as she pulled the trigger.

In under half a second the barrel assembly spun up with a whine, then the weapon roared even more loudly than the monster as a positive stream of glowing rounds ripped out of it, the strobing of the muzzle flash nearly a constant light. She was shocked at how fast the fucking thing chewed through ammo, the counter spinning down almost too fast to read, but not as shocked as the monster was at how fast the ammo chewed through _it_.

Chunks of gray flesh flew everywhere as the thing was hammered back against the door, hitting it with a sizzling sound and a cloud of steam. It let out a completely different scream and jerked, then sagged to the ground as she released the trigger, the counter reading zero. The gun spun down, until relative silence fell, broken by a continuous hiss of cooking monster and the clicking of the door slowly cooling.

"Fuck..." she whispered in awe, before looking at the chain gun with a very pleased and impressed smile. "This thing is _amazing_."

After a moment, she frowned. "Bit heavy on ammo, though. I don't have _that_ much..." Deciding to reserve it for the serious problems, she dropped the now empty magazine, tossed it to the side, and stored the gun away again, retrieving her plasma rifle instead. She had a lot more energy cells than chain gun magazines after all.

Once she'd checked the movement scanner and assured herself that nothing was going to jump her, she dropped out of the trap door, landing on the floor without trouble, then studied the deceased giant she'd blown away. Smiling grimly, she turned and resumed walking, now with a clear destination in mind, many levels below.

When she rounded a corner a hundred yards further on, she was more than slightly surprised to come face to face with the _other_ monster, which was standing motionless in the middle of the corridor apparently waiting for her, a fireball ready in each hand.

"Oh, _fu…!_" she managed to say, whipping her gun up, but all she saw was a green flash before everything went dark. 

* * *

Taylor opened her eyes, very wide indeed, then sat up so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash, while frantically looking around. What the hell had happened?

A second later a familiar and appalling stench hit her nose, making her gag. She looked down, before freezing, staring at the mess surrounding her.

After some time, she swore at length, creatively and viciously, before getting up and stalking across the room to stand staring at a horribly familiar door. Then she turned around and inspected the crates on the other side of the room.

_Then_ she glared at the ceiling in total fury.

"So it's like that, is it!?" she shouted. "Well, _fuck you to hell! Fuck you, fuck this place, fuck everything!_" She spun, punched the door, screamed in pain and rage, and stomped towards the crate she knew contained a set of UAC Mk.9 Mod. 16 WC/04/2147-92B power armor.

It didn't matter how many times she had to do this. She'd fucking well _do_ it, and when she did, whoever or whatever was behind her situation was going to _die_.

Slowly, painfully, and screaming her name.

She was looking forward to that part.


	4. DOOMed: Interlude the first!

"Are you certain this will work?"

"Yes."

"...Probably."

"Oh, _very_ helpful. So you might be putting that girl through all this for nothing?"

"Or perhaps creating a problem that's in the long run even greater than the one this is meant to solve..."

"She _is_ going to be very, _very_ angry by the end. Not that she's particularly pleased right _now_, of course."

"It is necessary for the plan. Unfortunately. And we'll just have to accept the long term effects."

"And if… _he…_ finds out?"

"That would be bad. Really bad. Really, really bad. _He_ wouldn't be happy. You know what's liable to happen then."

"By the time _he_ finds out it will be too late, one way or another."

"So you keep saying, but..."

"I know what I'm doing."

"You always say that, but I can remember more than once where things went… odd."

"So can I."

"Both of you can shut up. We don't have much choice after all."

"I'm not happy either. I'm the one she's likely to take it out on, you know. I'm doing my best, but some of this is going to take a hell of a lot of experimentation to handle."

"Ironic, really."

"Very funny. You idiot."

"I do what I can."

"All I'm saying is that this is way outside my experience or abilities to immediately deal with. I can help her, but a lot of the necessary work is going to be up to her, and she's _really_ not going to enjoy it. At all."

"She _is_ smiling..."

"_That_ is not a _smile_. Not one that you'd want aimed at _you_, at any rate."

"I wouldn't be too keen on having some of those weapons aimed at me either, not with her on the other end."

"Which is distinctly possible."

"Too late now. We're committed. She was the best candidate after all, especially considering her background. All we can do is wait, and give any help we can on the way. I have faith in her."

"So do I, but then _I'm_ the one actually giving the help. _You_ lot are basically just watching at this point."

"It's all we _can_ do. I have faith in you too."

"Thanks very much. And I mean that in the most sarcastic manner possible."

"I know. And… I really am sorry. There was no other way."

"Yeah, well, eventually you're going to have to explain that to _her_. I'll be watching from _way_ over there..."

"Stop laughing, will you?"

"Can't help it. I'm just picturing the girl chasing you around with that ridiculously big gun and screaming '_Get back here so I can kill you_ **_properly!_**' like she did with that… whatever the damned thing was."

"Maybe we should start stocking up on popcorn? We're going to need a _lot_ of it."

"Go away, all of you, and let me work. Especially _you_."

"Fine. We'll be ready when _she's_ ready."

"I hope you're ready for her when she comes for _us_..."

"If we succeed, that's hopefully something we can explain. If not, it won't matter."

"Still not convinced. Too late now though."

"Definitely."

"I said _go away!_"

"We're going, we're going. No need to get upset."

"Now you're just being deliberately obtuse. I'll let you know when I have more news."

"Good luck. See you later."

"Yeah, yeah, like _that's_ going to help. Idiots. Sorry, Taylor, I know this sucks..."


	5. DOOMed IV: DOOMGirl Is Pissed

The second time she got killed by a floating red ball with a single eye and a massive toothy mouth that popped up at the far end of a long corridor right as she was reloading and hit her in the face with a ball of what looked like lightning. Six times in a row while she was trying to recover.

* * *

The third time it was a hellish combination of a spider and a machine that dropped out of a hatch in the ceiling along with four identical friends, and plasma'd her to death before she could kill more than three of them, two hand to hand.

* * *

The ninth time she killed _herself_ when she got really annoyed and used the rocket launcher she'd found in an abandoned and mostly ransacked armory along with enough ammo for it that if she'd been carrying it normally she'd have needed about ten trips. Her bigger on the inside armor pockets, though, took it handily. Unfortunately it turned out that the damage radius was _considerably_ greater than she'd really realized, not having had time to properly read the manual before being swarmed by about a hundred or so of the irritating red ape-like plasma imps, as she'd taken to calling them in her head. Sure, she got all of _them_, but she'd still woken up in that now all-too-familiar room. Very, very pissed off.

* * *

The thirty third time it was a whole troop of the things that had done for her the first time around. They'd needed close to ten minutes of pitched battle to finally kill her, and she'd got over eighty percent of them first, six through literally beating them to death with the dismembered leg of a seventh while swearing at the top of her voice.

* * *

The fifty fourth time it was because she ran around a corner firing back over her shoulder at something she still couldn't actually come up with a good description of and found that the end of that corridor was an open elevator shaft. One that seemed to go to the core of the planet, based on how long she was falling for. Of course, she'd discovered this by running right into it…

It gave her quite a long time to work on her vocabulary.

* * *

Each time she died she'd noticed that it seemed to take the enemy, which was basically everything that wasn't her, longer and longer not to mention more and more effort to kill her. Of course, this only seemed to encourage the fuckers, and they rallied magnificently, throwing vast hordes of _things_ at her, which she almost happily mowed down in bulk, using the steadily growing collection of steadily more lethal weapons she'd picked up on the way. Her approach had turned into '_loot the installation to the ground and kill everything in it_' which wasn't actually all that far off what she'd _started_ as. Except there was increasing dark enjoyment in the killing part.

Those creatures and whatever was behind them were _really_ beginning to piss her off…

* * *

By the one hundred and second time she'd found herself back in the original room, Taylor was an old hand at getting the armor and weapons set up. She was also so far beyond fury that she couldn't even think of a word for it, and had ended up in an almost zenlike state of eerie calm underlaid by a rage that would destroy a star.

She settled for destroying absolutely everything else, not having a star handy to take out her peevishness on.

Her ability to _use_ the armor and weapons had grown by leaps and bounds too. She'd now read and somehow managed to memorize every manual she'd found both in the store room, which she'd completely dismantled the third time through in case there was something hidden in it that explained what the fuck was going on, and in her travels. Each time, she'd tried a slightly different route where possible, and each time she'd managed to get further, faster. Even so, she was still a long way from the lowest levels, which she somehow felt were the key to getting home.

And she _was going to get home._ Even if she had to kill everything in the universe that stood between her and her goal.

When she thought that, while muttering obscenities under her breath as she quickly ran through the now instinctive startup procedure necessary to initialize a UAC Mk.9 Mod. 16 WC/04/2147-92B power armor unit for the first time, she absently wondered why she could almost swear she felt something at the back of her mind smile in approval.

It was something she'd noticed more than once. At times she got the strangest sense she was being watched. Usually that was immediately followed by some horror jumping out at her and needing a damn good killing, but sometimes it just came out of nowhere. Often following her managing to work out another piece to the puzzle of staying alive long enough to get to the bottom, both literally and figuratively, of this massive installation.

A suspicion had been growing in her right from the start that someone was playing with her, and she wasn't pleased about it. Not even slightly.

As in, '_sufficiently furious so as to want to tie down the perpetrator and cut bits off them while they writhed in agony_' not pleased about it.

Feeling a very faint, but not she was sure totally imaginary, sensation of worry come to her from somewhere, she said out loud, "You'd better be worried. When I get out of this, you're second on the list of people I'm coming for."

First, of course, was absolutely everyone even slightly responsible for her ending up in that locker to begin with. She was going to deal with them all at once if she had her way. Possibly from several miles away with one of the larger weapons she was pretty sure she could build from scratch at this point. If nothing else, reading everything in sight had taught her a hell of a lot about some very futuristic technology. At one point she'd wondered if she'd managed during all this to Trigger as a Tinker of some sort, but dismissed that in the end as she didn't seem to have any of the normal urges she'd read about that afflicted such people.

The main urge she suffered from was one of wanting to kill things, which under the circumstances seemed entirely reasonable. After all, things wanted to kill _her_. All the fucking _time_.

Even though she was still curious as to _how_ she kept apparently resurrecting in the same goddamn place each time something ghastly happened to her, it had ceased to be of immediate importance. It was enough to know that it _did_ happen, and that it was a pain in the ass at the same time as having saved her from real death one hundred and one times now.

She was completely certain that whatever was doing it wasn't something she was responsible for, and she was also sure that this wasn't some bizarre simulation or game of some sort. Around the eighth or ninth time through, she'd suddenly wondered if it was some fucked up thing Leet had come up with, as it seemed like something the inept Tinker villain would do if he could. A few cycles later she decided it wasn't really his style even with the almost computer-game-like approach. Leet, while a dick, wasn't anything like as messed up as this place would have required for him to come up with it.

And, of course, it seemed to be notably _not_ blowing up, or melting, or disappearing into some wormhole to hell. Unlike every Leet invention she'd ever heard of which had a habit of doing one or more of those things sooner or later.

So, no, it wasn't something he was responsible for. Which saved him from a violent death at her hands when she got home. But _someone_ was doing it and they were going to _pay. _Over and over if she had any say in it.

Screaming.

As her armor came online she nodded to herself, disconnected all the tools and wires, packed them away in the relevant kits, then donned the system with the instinctive ease of someone who's done the same thing more than a hundred times in a row.

And in all that time she hadn't actually slept. Partly because it was hard to sleep when things were dropping on you, or lunging at you, or flying out of the dark at you, or even shooting rockets at you while laughing manically like something from the pit of hell. And partly because she didn't really seem to _need_ to sleep now.

Taylor suspected that the various drugs the armor pumped into her, along with all the nanotech it used to build the neural interfacing bits each time, were having a permanent effect that lasted between resets. She'd definitely bulked up a little, although not enough that she looked too different from before as far as she could tell, and her strength and stamina had gone through the roof. If nothing else this appeared to be one hell of an exercise regime although she could happily have exchanged it for swimming or something else that didn't require heavy weapons. But now she had hard muscle overlaid by a little feminine fat, had lost the slight belly she'd always obsessed over, and was pretty sure her reflexes had improved to the point it was probably something that would count as a Parahuman ability in some ways.

Not quite a Brute, as she understood it, but a lot more than a normal human. Probably much closer to what the armor was originally intended for by UAC, who she'd read enough about in the various sources she'd run across to have worked out were assholes, but also remarkably good at military technology and related fields.

If it wasn't for the constant dying and having to shoot who knew how many horrible things by now, she'd have quite enjoyed the learning she'd been forced into. There was no denying it was teaching her a lot she'd never have learned at home. That said, she'd rather have _been_ at home. Her father was constantly at the back of her mind and she was totally determined, with an unshakable faith, that she would get back to him and not force him to wonder for the rest of his life what had happened to her.

She missed him a lot.

Quickly running through the now ingrained process of loading up everything in sight into her armor, she double-checked all her systems, equipped her basic plasma rifle, hit the door open switch, and stomped out into the corridor which was already full of screeching imp-things, firing steadily and with exacting precision. They died in droves, some with holes in them and some with her fist through their chests or heads. The entire time she had a faint grin on her face. This was the _easy_ part. It would take a while before it became a challenge, and she was just pushing through to get to all the caches of loot she'd need before that stage.

Twenty minutes in she was singing under her breath as she mowed down everything that moved, had been moving, or looked like it was thinking that at some point in the future it _would_ move.

"_Oh girls just wanna have guns_," she sang, holding the trigger down and hosing plasma at everything in sight.

* * *

It took her two hundred and sixteen attempts before she finally made it down to the last level of the installation. Two hundred and sixteen passes through the gauntlet, collecting anything she could carry off, reading everything she found, learning how to crack the security on multiple computer systems and siphon them dry of any data available, and killing. Killing to the level that it was now barely noticeable when the little imps turned up, she just waded through them without breaking step. Twice she'd found herself ambushed in the starting room by several of the little horrors before she had an opportunity to get her armor ready. The first time she'd beaten two of them to death with a crate before collecting enough plasma hits to kill her, the second time she'd gone completely medieval on the little bastards being totally fucked off with the entire experience and actually chased the last one around the room four times before jumping it and pulling its head off with her bare hands while laughing like an idiot.

Then she took a bite out of it, just to get back at the one that had taken a bite out of _her_ the last time.

It tasted like chicken.

Tired of the MREs she'd used the plasma rifle to cook an arm, eaten quite a lot of it, and then discovered that it tasted like _toxic_ chicken.

That had been a rather unpleasant death, all in all, and when she woke up the next time she resolved not to eat demons any more. Or whatever they really were. Possibly aliens. Or demonic aliens.

Something like that.

The tingling sensation in her nerves took a couple of resets to go away, but it did in the end.

Taylor had collected enough security access tokens to let her get into anywhere in the base, but now she was faced with the biggest problem so far. The flooded, and let's not forget, radioactive, part of the place was in front of her. Her armor had been warning her of high ambient radiation levels for a while now, and she could feel the internal systems doing something inside her to fix the damage even as it accrued. She was fairly sure she was going to die at least a few more times before she worked out the quickest path through the next section, but was sufficiently inured to the process that it was merely part of the way her life worked at the moment.

Hearing a sound from behind her, she pulled out a handful of grenades, set the timers on them with a practiced prod of her armored thumb, and threw them back down the dark corridor she'd come along. A series of pinging sounds as the grenades bounced off the walls and floor was followed by a massive explosion as they all went off simultaneously, and a screech of rage and pain from the thing they'd detonated near. It didn't seem too happy about that.

Sighing, she shouted, "Shut up, I'm_ thinking!_" and went back to studying the heavily armored door in front of her, while checking her map and scanning the surrounding area.

Another screech came from behind, accompanied by pounding footsteps, making her turn around, pull out the most recent acquisition in the weapons collections she'd amassed, flick the power switch, and wait. Moments later, even as the ready tone sounded in her helmet, a twelve foot high minotaurlike thing with big horns, hooves, and a bad attitude charged out of the dark at her, both hands full of green fire.

She calmly used the weapons interlink to her HUD to put the crosshairs on the middle of its chest, then fired. The railgun spat a large ball of blue super-heated metal at the thing, which screamed and staggered. Two more shots finished it off, the creature actually exploding into bloody chunks on the last one.

Satisfied, she put the enormous weapon away again, then returned to studying the main problem.

When she was jumped by a rather optimistic plasma imp about two minutes later she merely crushed its head with a fist without looking up from her attempt on the complex locking system that was denying access to the next section. No more monsters attacked, although she could hear them gargling and roaring somewhere in the distance, by the time she finally managed to open it. For some time now they'd been a lot more circumspect at how they attacked, apparently having finally learned that one on one they tended to come off worst.

She could almost _swear_ she could feel them out there, watching her. All this combat had left her almost with a sixth sense as to the position of the enemy. At times she'd opened fire on them before she'd consciously even _seen_ the attacking thing.

As the door crunched and ground open, a flood of somewhat worryingly tinted and slightly glowing water poured out, pooling around her feet. The radiation alarms in her armor took on a more urgent tone. Giving the mental command to both shut up and to deal with the problem, she walked grimly forwards, almost curious to know how far she'd get this time.

Only about two hundred yards, as it turned out.

What also became apparent was that the monsters infesting the place were immune to radiation, although it seemed to make them even more aggressive. And there were a _lot_ of them. Almost every one of the couple of dozen variants she'd run into so far came swarming out of every possible opening, up from under the flooded catwalk she'd been moving along, dropping from far above on top of her, you name it. Even so, it took them a good half hour to finally overwhelm her, and she'd accounted well for herself, thinning the enormous herd by well over fifty percent.

* * *

The next time, she deliberately went out of her way to collect every scrap of ammunition, every single weapon she'd seen, to make sure she had enough hardware to deal with the problem.

It _nearly_ worked.

* * *

So did the next time.

Nearly.

* * *

On the two hundred and nineteenth time, she made it all the way to the end, having reserved as much ammo as possible on the way down by merrily chainsawing her way through as many of the enemy as she could using the viciously combat-modified tool she'd found on the tenth level. She was now fast and strong enough to wield it one handed, and could take out most things with it. The roar it made was almost soothing in a weird way, she found.

Taylor was beginning to suspect that her outlook on some things was being affected by her time here.

Oh well. When she got home, and killed everyone involved in her holiday in hell, she could get therapy or something. And relax.

Kicking the last dismembered gibbet of meat off the walkway she was standing on into the polluted water beneath, she put the chain-gun away having reloaded it just in case, and turned to the final door between her and the last level of this bizarre place, which was labeled '_UAC Advanced Research Complex. Unauthorized entry will be met with lethal response._' It didn't take her long with the aid of her armor to get through it. By the time she climbed a set of stairs and found herself looking out over a large open area with rooms all around the edges, her armor was telling her she needed to stop and work on fixing the radiation damage right now, rather than pushing on.

With a mutter of irritation, she made sure the door she'd come through was firmly locked, welded it shut with her plasma rifle, then checked all around with the life detector. It didn't show anything close so she was safe enough for the moment. Rummaging around in one of her storage compartments she eventually found a pack of the stuff referred to in the documentation she'd found with it as '_UAC Mk. 16 Mod. 8 FT/314/XC Revitalization Nanites_' which had also come with a dire warning that using more than two in a row was contraindicated except in extreme cases.

She'd used at least a dozen of them on this run through, and so far nothing seemed amiss. Seeing that this pack only had four left, she thought for a moment, shrugged, and stuck one after another into the intake port on her armor, wincing a little at the mildly agonizing sensation of burning alive they produced as they went to work.

The biosign display in her HUD stopped flashing an annoying and urgent red, slowly changing through amber to finally settle in the green, as all the aches and pains magically disappeared. "Good stuff," she sighed happily, tossing the empty pack to the side. Luckily she had many, many packs of the goop left, so that was handy.

"Right. Now, let's see what goodies I can find _here_," she added under her breath, while getting a distant impression of slight amusement and mild concern from her possibly imaginary watcher. "Shut up, you."

The sensation vanished.

She shook her head. Taylor really didn't know if she was actually feeling something real, or just making it up in her subconscious. Whatever it was, she'd spent quite a lot of time shouting at it, swearing at it, talking to it, and threatening it.

Mostly that last one.

Whatever, it wasn't important right now. What _was_ important was finding a way home, and preferably some more weapons.

You couldn't go wrong with more weapons in her recent experience.

Looking around, her trusty plasma rifle held ready, she started exploring.

* * *

"That's the biggest fucking gun I've ever _seen_," she murmured, staring avariciously at enormous energy weapon in the middle of a room that had taken her over three hours to get into. Someone had _really_ wanted this place locked up tight.

The thing was huge, even bigger than the chain gun, and had a barrel that looked large enough to put a soda can into. Walking over to it, she reached out and carefully picked it up, the servos in her armor whining a little at the weight. Taylor examined it carefully, admiring the menacing look, and eventually found the power control. Flicking it she grinned as it lit up a rather pretty green color with an ominous sub-bass rumbling hum.

"Oh, yes… This will do nicely," she said under her breath, turning it off again and stashing it in her armor, then looking around for the documentation that she was sure would be somewhere nearby. UAC did seem to be very good on the manual front, and had a definite process for this sort of thing.

Sure enough, she found not one, but three thick manuals, all of which related to the huge weapon, in a locked cabinet at the rear of the room, having ripped the door off with one hand. Picking the first one up, she read the title to herself.

"UAC Mk. 1 Mod. 4 Experimental Plasma Cannon," she mumbled, flipping through the various warnings about how much trouble someone would be in for even looking at the thing without the right clearance. Reaching the main part of the documentation, she leaned against the pedestal the weapon had been on and absorbed herself in the manual, reading intently and quickly.

When she'd finished the operations documentation, her grin was massive and dangerous. "Oh, yes _indeed,"_ she chortled to herself. "_Exactly_ what I wanted for Christmas."

Putting that manual away, she picked up the next one, finding it was a service manual, and the last turned out to be a thick set of schematics and theoretical work. She read both of them with interest.

Finally finishing, she nodded to herself as she stowed all the documentation, then began methodically ransacking the entire room, tearing open each storage compartment and coming up with large quantities of ammunition for the thing, along with a whole set of specialized tools. All of it went into her armor.

Leaving that room she moved on to the next. This place was enormous, full of toys, all of which she wanted, and hopefully held the key to getting home. So she was going to strip-mine it of everything it held and see what she could find.

* * *

"Ooohhhh..."

The girl stared at the shiny pile of equipment, all of which looked very familiar although with some intriguing modifications. Picking up one piece she examined it, then looked down at her scorched and blackened armor. She held the new section of what was obviously an upgraded variant of the same system to her left arm, checking the fit, nodded, and went to find the manual and her tools.

When she left that room several hours later her armor was slightly different, much shinier, and _vastly_ tougher.

"Bastard ARC guys keeping all the good stuff for themselves," she grumbled, looking down at her upgraded armor with approval. "Mine now."

She had a vague hope that if she got killed again, perhaps the new armor would follow her. If not, she knew where it was now.

Eventually she found the place she'd been heading for all along, having scooped up everything else that wasn't nailed to the floor. "Dimensional transport lab A4," she read out loud, staring at the massively heavy armored portal in front of her. "You'd better be the way home or there's going to be trouble," she warned it, stomping towards the flickering lock mechanism. Like so much of the stuff around here it was still rather remarkably working after all this time, but whatever the power source for the installation was it was clearly not well. Examining the control box, she pulled out a handful of access cards and shuffled through them, looking for the right one. Finding it, she slid it through the reader, typed in a long code, used her armor to access the computer to give yet another authorization, then smiled when it beeped twice and clicked, the display on it changing to **OPEN**.

Then frowned when there was a nasty grinding sound and the door moved about half an inch before stopping.

"Oh, come on," she sighed, putting her cards away, then digging her fingers into the crack and yanking as hard as both she and her armor could manage. The door resisted massively for twenty seconds before very reluctantly sliding sideways, something inside breaking with a sharp _crack!_

When it was finally open enough, she squeezed through, finding it was at least six feet thick, far more than any other door she'd run into up to this point. On the other side was a vast room, three stories high and at least two hundred feet across, surrounded by computer consoles and holographic displays, many of which were displaying incomprehensible graphics which steadily changed. Most of the rest were either blank or showed the UAC logo.

Right in the center of the room was a horrifically complex block of machinery which seemed to have a hazy pink glow coming from somewhere inside. There were massive power conduits coming from both the top and bottom of the thing, disappearing into the floor and ceiling, and it was clearly still active. She walked cautiously around it, keeping one eye on her monster detector, as she was becoming a little more paranoid than usual since none of the things seemed to be around right now and that was worrying. The more she studied the machinery the less she understood it, finding that parts of it seemed to not really be quite in the same version of reality that she was currently inhabiting.

It was pretty obviously what she was looking for. The question was, how did she use it to get home?

Looking back at the computers, she sighed. This was going to take a while.

* * *

Three weeks later, Taylor stepped back from the last console, looking around at all the displays which were now showing dozens of rapidly changing patterns and tables, while a subliminal thrumming sound came from all about her. She nodded to herself, turning to inspect the portal machine. It was glowing more brightly now, bits of it having energy discharges running up and down the sides emitting sparks and a crackling noise, while the center of it was even harder to look at. Your eyes wanted to peer around a corner that wasn't there to begin with, she thought.

It had taken a lot of reading, but she thought she had a handle on how the thing worked. If she'd managed to understand the research of the long dead scientists who'd build this thing, it led to a sort of different dimension when activated, and was almost certainly what had brought her here. Somehow. She still was no closer to working out _who_ had done that, or for that matter _why_, but she was planning on asking them quite vigorously when she tracked them down.

But for now, if she'd got the calculations right, this _should_ take her home, or at least get her on the right path. It looked like it went through that other dimension and all she had to do was cross it to find a way back to Brockton Bay, and assuming the thing was set right, 2011. As far as she could tell there was a large temporal offset between this version of reality and her home one, so the time travel aspect should take care of itself.

She hoped.

Worst case, she'd come back and try again, but with any luck she wouldn't need to. The only thing stopping her walking right into it was the thought that the other side of this was probably where all these monsters had come from in the first place and it was likely that there would be some over there too. She took the opportunity to make sure that all her many, many weapons were fully loaded, and eat and drink, then relax as much as possible for an hour or so. There was no point jumping into battle tired and hungry.

On the upside, hopefully there would be less of them running around in such tight confines wherever it was that this thing led to. It seemed possible that a lot of the bastards had been coming through for years, somehow, as the machine seemed to have been intermittently activating itself since the first incursion. That could well mean that this place had far more of them in it that was normal where they came from.

It didn't really matter. She'd deal with whatever was on the other side, as she had no choice in the matter. She was going home, that was the end of it, and _anything _that tried to stop her was going to end up in little pieces all over the place.

And then she was going to have _words_ with whoever did this.

Idly wondering if when she made it home, dying would send her back here, which would result in her becoming _very_ angry, she finished off the last of her drink, pulled out the plasma rifle which she'd heavily modified in one of the weapons labs a couple of days ago, and headed determinedly towards the portal and the trip home where she was going to strangle a bitch.

She disappeared into the distorted space in a flicker of oddly colored light, then the room was empty.


	6. DOOMed V: The Voyage Home (Of DOOM)

Taylor stood still as the strangest sensation she'd ever felt ebbed away.

She thought it was remarkably similar to watching water spiral down the drain, as experienced from the point of view of the water…

Blinking a few times, she shook her head hard, with the feeling that something in the back of her mind was watching curiously yet apprehensively. The girl growled at it, making whatever it was flinch.

"Yeah, I'll be coming for you, trust me on that," she snarled. "Once I've finished off any of the fuckers between me and home."

There was another sensation, this one coming from what she was becoming convinced was some sort of sixth sense she'd developed for detecting the monsters. It had served her well so far, each run through her own personal hell having enhanced it. Now it was prodding her very urgently. Looking around she examined where she'd ended up after the bizarre dimensional shift caused by the UAC machine. Surrounding her were rough stone walls that almost looked like they'd been melted, as if this place had once been full of lava. The rock was dark, almost black, and seemed to have tiny pinpricks of deep red light glowing somehow inside it here and there. Turning on the spot she inspected the entire place.

She was in a cave, as far as she could tell, one possibly a hundred feet across and maybe half that high. The ground was pitted and scored, piles of rubble around the edges which seemed to have flaked off the walls, and the entire affair was a rough oval, the far end narrowing with the roof coming down to ultimately form a misshapen tunnel that curved away to the left. The dull glow illuminating the area rather insufficiently came from the other end, where the same misty pinkish energy that had been inside the transportation machine she'd got running on the martian base. Just as in that case, staring at it made one's eyes try to go around a corner that wasn't there, although she noted absently that the effect didn't seem so peculiar this time. Perhaps she was getting used to it.

Walking over to the portal she studied it for a few seconds. It seemed stable, so if necessary she could go back through it, but right now she saw no reason to do so. The UAC facility would keep, and she'd more than had her fill of the fucking place anyway.

Turning around she looked at the exit from this cavern, thought for a moment, then made sure her plasma rifle was ready and headed for it. All the modifications she'd made to the trusty weapon, some of them the result of documentation she'd read, and some from her own ideas, had made it not only her standard go-to boomstick, but one she really liked.

A lot.

It was so _good_ at killing things.

She suspected it was going to get a chance to do more killing very soon if the feeling in her bones was right.

Oddly enough, Taylor was fine with that. And very, very calm while still being a boiling cauldron of suppressed fury.

As she passed the middle of the cavern her armor HUD made an odd sound and popped up a message she'd never encountered before.

**Dimensional transit waypoint saved.**

She stopped and looked at the message, while trying to work out what it was talking about. There was a mention in one of the manuals she'd read about the armor having some sort of transdimensional navigation ability, linked to the way it had pockets that were preposterously larger on the inside and presumably using much the same technology, but she couldn't remember that specific message being mentioned. Possibly it was something the armor's onboard processor network had independently come up with. She was aware that the computers in this thing were amazingly powerful, probably far more so than anything at home, and seemed to be learning from her as time went on. Considering how deeply it was linked into her mind with the neural interface, that didn't entirely surprise her.

After a couple of seconds she shrugged. Right now it wasn't important. When she got home, she could work out what was going on, but she certainly wasn't going to waste time and risk problems by fucking around with her armor right now. Running a quick diagnostic, which came back all in the green, she dismissed the notification and resumed heading towards the exit.

The next ten minutes passed uneventfully as she moved with caution, skill, and enormous amounts of heavily armed paranoia down the winding passageway that led away from the cavern she'd arrived in. She didn't know what was up ahead, but she could hear some strange sounds and her monster sense was tingling.

Plus that thing in the back of her mind was watching very carefully. That was guaranteed to make her even more cautious.

Eventually she rounded one final bend, finding that there was now light coming from up ahead somewhere. She'd long passed into near-absolute darkness once the dim glow from the cavern vanished behind her and had been using both the impressively good light amplification system in the armor, as well as the thermal imaging, millimetric radar, and even more esoteric sensory packages it had. Now, she turned most of that off with an almost instinctive mental command, only leaving the night vision, which she wound down a lot.

As she even more carefully approached the light, looking from side to side, upwards, and behind herself in case of ambush, she kept her rifle ready to fire with all the tracking assist functions fully active. Eventually she found herself a short distance from a ninety-degree turn which was illuminated quite brightly by the standards of this place, but in real terms still fairly dimly. The light was a flickering orange-yellow like from a fire. The odd sounds had become much louder, some she recognized as the calls of the monsters she was all too familiar with, apparently at some distance, but a lot new to her. It was all underlaid by a nearly subsonic rumble like a train in the distance, which waxed and waned irregularly.

Her HUD told her that the outside temperature was over forty degrees centigrade, which was pretty hot but not excessively so. Inside the armor she felt completely comfortable, of course, since it sneered at any heat below the melting point of iridium.

Unfortunately some of the monsters used plasma which was much, much hotter than that. She'd found that to her cost more than a few times. On the other hand, _her_ plasma was even hotter than _that_...

Taking a breath and readying herself, she raised the weapon, stepped around the corner ready for anything, and stopped dead.

There was a long, long silence.

"I am going to fucking _slaughter_ you," she said with fury to the thing that seemed to live in her imagination. "After I do the same thing to _those_ fuckers."

She paused, then added reflectively, "Which might take a while."

It was only the truth.

There were a _lot_ of monsters down there, below the eighty foot cliff her tunnel exited at the top of.

Like, _all_ the monsters.

And every single one of the vast crowd of _things_ was looking right at her. Waiting.

Very slowly, her teeth bared in the most vicious grin in the history of grins.

"Prepare to die, Mr Monster," she almost sang before flinging herself off the cliff, opening fire on the way down and filling the sky of what appeared to be a cave large enough to lose Brockton Bay inside with brilliant blue-white plasma shots. Thousands of green, red, and purple fireballs came back at her.

Somehow directing her fall through them, most missing with only a few hitting her massively upgraded armor, she landed directly on top of one of the things that she'd chain-gunned to death right back at the beginning of this entire horrific event, ripped its head off with her free hand, stuck the plasma rifle into the remains of its neck, and pulled the trigger.

The entire ten foot tall horror exploded in a shower of gore, which rained down around and on her. She dropped to the ground as the legs of the thing fell to either side and grinned again as every monster she could see froze for a second or two.

"Hi!" she chirped brightly. "Let's play a game."

She put the plasma rifle away and pulled out in one smooth move the fuck-off big energy gun she'd liberated from the ARC labs, activating it with a flick of a finger. The sub-bass hum was soothing to her ears, making her entire armor gently vibrate, as the HUD linked to the gun and showed the energy levels and current shot count.

"The game's called… I kill you."

She pulled the trigger. Repeatedly.

When the gun indicated it was empty, she pulled out the empty energy cartridge, replaced it with a full one, put the empty into her storage, and looked around with satisfaction. Then she patted the enormous weapon fondly.

"I shall call you Mr Death, I think," she told it, sloshing her way through acres of knee-deep remains. In the distance she could see a huge crowd of monsters that seemed to be running away as fast as possible.

"Hey, come back, I'm not finished yet!" she shouted at the top of her voice, dark enjoyment in it.

They ran faster.

She followed, whistling to herself.

For the moment she was actually having an experience that she might term fun if she was so disposed.

"I love a target rich environment," she chuckled. 

* * *

"I fucking hate a target rich environment!" Taylor screamed as she ran like mad. Behind her a huge crowd of enormous _things_ howled and gibbered as they followed, rockets roaring past all around her. She spun, running backwards for a moment as she fired back with the plasma rifle, then kept the motion going to resume facing the right direction and charged around the side of one of the huge rock outcroppings this current area had sticking up all over the place. Above her the glowing orange sky rippled with eldritch currents, and huge flying things circled in the distance.

She was pretty sure that sooner or later one of them was going to attack. She could _feel_ them watching warily.

Diving into a crack in the rock that was too small for the things chasing her to enter, she waited as they ran past, while reloading her weapons. The enormous energy gun was cooling down from being used rather extensively, '_Mr Death_' having done a sterling job on _most_ of the vast collection of this current crop of horrors until it had overheated. She didn't blame the thing, it was an experimental weapon after all and had held up far better than she'd expected. If she found herself with some time where something _wasn't_ trying to eat her face she was fairly sure she could make a few changes to it to improve that situation, having had a few ideas, but right now that seemed unlikely to happen.

This place had an apparently never ending supply of monsters that made most of the ones back on Mars seem like mildly irritated kittens by comparison. She was actually having to work at killing them, and was in her opinion getting quite good at it, but the problem was that they were a lot smarter than the ones she was used to and seemed to be adapting to her tactics just as quickly.

Luckily she was _also_ good at adapting. And so far was staying ahead of the things.

As she finished loading the railgun and hefted it, the last of the crowd of monsters that had been in pursuit ran past the entrance to her hidey-hole, its talons making skittering sounds on the rock. She counted silently to herself, then eased out of the crevasse and took aim. Tracking the rear guard of the attacking force, which seemed to have realized she'd managed to slip past and was slowing in the distance, she held the trigger down while activating a modification she'd added in the ARC lab but not had a chance to try yet. The gun vibrated in her hands, heating up rapidly, and made a slightly unnerving whistle at a very high pitch that made the entire collection of tall skeletal things stop dead, then whip around to face her.

She smirked at them as they all raised their own weapons, and released the trigger.

"Boom," she whispered.

Then she put the fully depleted and very hot railgun away, pulled out her chainsaw, fired it up, and charged. Monster flesh flew as the tool screamed, and she howled her own song of fury to match.

When it was done, she straightened up, dropping the disembodied leg she'd been using as a cudgel, and looked around in satisfaction.

"Motherfuckers," she said under her breath. "Yeah, not so tough when you're in pieces, are you?"

Kicking a pile of remains to the side she stomped towards the path onwards. After a few feet, she slowed and looked around. "Why is it getting brighter..." she muttered, seeing that the entire area seemed to be glowing more and more visibly as if the light from above had…

Taylor stopped and looked up.

"Oh, Fu..." she managed before the bus-sized plasma ball hit, seeing one of the huge flying _things_ descending to her in a dive, another shot already incoming. 

* * *

Taylor opened her eyes.

"Now I'm _really_ mad," she grated as she stood up and looked around. Then she looked down at herself and started laughing grimly. "On the other hand, I don't need to piss around with Mars any more, looks like."

She headed towards the exit from the cavern, pulling out the _big_ fucking gun as she walked.

"Mr Death is hungry," she said in a happy little voice, "And I'm coming for you all." 

* * *

One hundred and forty two arrivals back in that fucking cavern took the shine off having somewhere different to wake up than the original storage room. By that point she was absolutely incandescent with fury to the point that she could _feel_ it apparently making reality itself look worried. She'd long since found that the odd dimensional portal had stopped causing her any issues with looking at it, and if anything her own vision seemed to have adapted to the odd way space in wherever she really was sometimes did odd things. She stretched, rolled her head inside her armor, and cracked her knuckles.

Her armor was like a part of her own body by now. She didn't even have to think about using it, she'd been in it for so long. Taylor didn't even really know how long she'd been slaughtering her way through this fucking place, aside from a rough estimate of probably months at least in her personal timeline. It was far, far larger than the martian base had been, and each time she'd taken a different route, finding all manner of strange things. Sometimes when she went around a corner the scenery abruptly changed as if she'd gone through another portal like the one back to Mars, the sensation of just for a moment falling down a hole in the universe getting less and less annoying each time. She'd fight her way through whatever the new place held, sometimes finding herself back in the place she'd started in, sometimes waking up back here when she ran into something she couldn't handle. Each time that happened, she gritted her teeth and went back there until she could _end_ whatever had killed her.

She wasn't going to let a little thing like a gruesome death put her off her revenge.

The little boring monsters like the plasma imps were by now about as much trouble as cockroaches. She just stepped on them and kept going. It seemed like they were _finally_ somehow getting the message, though, and the last four runs through they'd taken one look at her and run for their lives. A few of them simply froze in place and stared at her in apparent awe as she passed.

Those ones she let live. Most of the time.

Everything else died, eventually. Even the huge flying things.

She'd had to modify Mr Death quite a lot, using parts from some of the spare weapons she'd picked up, but in the end she'd managed to one-shot one of the enormous warped dragon-like creatures with the largest ball of virulently swirling green energy she'd ever seen. Of course, the fringe effects of the incredibly violent shot had killed _her_ too, but she'd lived long enough to see the thing explode into tiny fragments crackling with energy. She'd died with a smirk of pleasure and the thought that perhaps extra shielding would be a good idea the next time.

Pulling out the huge weapon and her toolkit, along with a large pile of other confiscated tech, she set to work, humming to herself. _This_ time she was going to bag herself a draconic demon -thing and live to kick its corpse in the head, if it had one left. 

* * *

By the two hundred and fifth time, she seemed to be on a roll, and hadn't died for weeks. This was good, but it was also a pain in the ass since it showed how fucking _large_ this place was.

"_Now_ where the hell am I?" Taylor grumbled, looking quickly around. Yet another one of those sudden dimensional shifts had popped up as she was chasing the last of the giant flying things, which had been retreating rapidly and roaring in agony and anger while trailing glowing ichor from the stump of one wing. She'd almost missed with her shot, but not quite.

Most of the other monsters were now definitely avoiding her, some of them looking downright terrified as much as she could tell from the utterly inhuman faces. Two hundred and five passes seemed to have given her an aura of instant death that even these things could pick up on, and they did _not_ like it. She herself was eerily calm, the ever-present fury powering her onwards like a relentless machine, while simmering way down in the depths of her mind.

Of course, all this meant was that the things that _did_ have the balls to attack her were getting steadily larger and more difficult to take out. This place seemed to have no end to the amount of horrors it could pull out of its ass and throw at her. And these dimensional jumps were getting more frequent too.

She'd seen some bizarre things even by her own standards. Floating islands the size of Massachusetts hanging in a sky that went on apparently forever, nothing visibly holding them up. Even larger caverns than the first one, covered in odd symbols, and entirely full of terrible creatures bent on destroying her. Until they _met_ her, of course. They tended to change their minds fairly quickly at that point, at least the more intelligent ones did.

The stupid ones she just killed.

Sometimes she found herself among gigantic ruins made of blocks of some dark stone the size of houses, that seemed to form angles that shouldn't really be allowed to exist. She thought they were oddly pretty, but more than a little annoying since they gave the things she was dealing with strange places to hide. One of these areas was also full of some very aggressive tentacled things with too many eyes which were talking to each other in deep voices in some language she almost thought she recognized. As soon as they spotted her they attacked. Of course. She was expecting _that_.

Apparently they weren't expecting _her_. By the time she finished very little of the bizarre architecture was still intact, and all the things were dead or dying. She'd quite enjoyed that experience because of the way they'd looked so surprised when she started killing them. It had made her giggle a little.

Sometimes she passed through areas that looked similar to, but weirdly different from, the UAC base, as if they'd been patterned on it somehow but whoever did it hadn't read the instructions. Those places tended to be full of monsters that had some strange cybernetic modifications, all rusty metal and glowing electronics. She spend some time scavenging anything that looked interesting in such areas when she finished killing anything in them that looked funny at her. Some of that tech had found its way into her weapons and had definitely added to their lethality.

Sometimes she passed through places that were almost organic in nature, as if the very walls were alive, and not with the sound of music. Odd sounds even compared to what she was used to would come from somewhere, and strange crystalline growths sprouted all over the place. She'd found that she could blast her way right through the walls in that sort of area, using the tracker system to locate whatever she was pursuing or that was pursuing her. Who was chasing who tended to ebb and flow but on the whole she thought she was coming out ahead.

Once or twice she'd even found herself back in an area that seemed almost like the Mars base, with lower gravity and everything, but where the damage was even worse than her first experience. Open courtyards would give way to peculiarly old-appearing buildings, all of it decaying and falling to pieces. By the time she left those areas they were usually past the point of _falling to pieces_ and more in the category of _in pieces_. Sometimes with large craters added.

She'd figured out how to use the energy cells for Mr Death to make a really _good_ explosion a couple of dozen resets ago.

The mushroom cloud was very pretty…

Right now she was going through another of the strangely organic areas, and the tracks of the wounded giant flying creature were outlined in blue-glowing blood-equivalent. Cautiously walking along she pushed her way through twitching pseudo-flesh, occasionally ripping an obstructing piece away with her gauntleted hand and tossing it to the side. Everything looked slightly rotted as if it was barely holding onto whatever form of life it had, the tiny glowing lights she sometimes spotted deep inside barely visible and giving the impression of being on their last legs.

Grumbling to herself about stupid dragon-things that didn't have the decency to stop moving when she shot them, she pressed on, her omnipresent rage an almost comforting sensation in the depths of her mind. The unknown observer seemed to be back too, a feeling of slight amusement mixed with impressed awe coming from it. Taylor was by now entirely certain it was real, and wasn't happy about that. "You do realize I haven't forgotten about you, I hope," she told it absently as she peered around a mass of soft and gooey fleshlike stuff. The light changed up ahead somewhere and she scanned the area again with various sensors. Her quarry showed as being about half a mile ahead, and behind her a couple more of the things seemed to be trying to sneak up on her having apparently followed through whatever hole in space had led her here.

Pulling out one of her modified power cells she thought for a moment, running some calculations in her head with the ease of practice, then thumbed the keypad she'd added to the device with the right data. When it was set she carefully put it down and nudged it under an overhanging mass of fleshy whatever the hell it was, before walking away. A hundred yards further she send the command that armed the improvised bomb and watched the HUD report the status with a grim smile. "Trip over that, see what happens," she muttered to the pair of blips that she could see slowly closing on her position, and could feel in the distance.

Forgetting about them for now, she resumed following the original one. Several miles later there was an enormous flash of light that came from behind, transmitted through the translucent surroundings, and she grinned to herself. The shockwave came some time later, making the ground heave underfoot.

Both blips and her own mysterious sense of the monsters showed that there was now only the one ahead.

"Right. Let's finish this. I've got a dad waiting for me," she said, moving faster.

Some considerable time later, after pausing to eat an MRE and drink, she emerged from the strange underground area into what seemed to be the surface of wherever she really was. Looking up she could see what looked like stars, although the night sky didn't match anything like she could remember from home at all. Some of the stars were much too bright, and there was a rather impressive galaxy low on the horizon that was clearly visible to the naked eye.

After staring at it with a certain degree of impressed awe for a couple of minutes, she shook her head and resumed dealing with her main priority. Looking around she saw that she'd exited a vast cliff formed of that strange almost organic rock stuff which stretched off in both directions out of sight, and rose to at least a couple of hundred feet above her. The little traces of illumination in it seemed to have died off completely, and thinking back she realized that this probably coincided with her little present to the monsters that had been following her.

She shrugged. It wasn't important.

In front of her she could see the glowing trail ascending a slope covered in rubble, so she followed. She had a policy; Never let one of them get away.

At the top of the rise, she looked around again, seeing that the slope she'd climbed seemed to go both ways in a huge arc completely out of sight. In front of her in the far distance were more old buildings, another set of ruins most likely, as she'd encountered more than once. And in the middle distance the damaged but still kicking flying monster was crawling along, making it apparent it wasn't pleased at all but wasn't anywhere near dead yet.

Well, that was easy enough to fix.

Putting her plasma rifle away, the weapon now even more modified and fiddled with than before, she pulled out Mr Death and armed it. Flicking added switches with confidence and assurance she lifted the gun to her shoulder and took aim.

"Bye bye!" she said happily, firing the thing.

The vast ball of crackling energy roared across the plain towards the monster, tendrils of death reaching out for anything in range. She watched as it approached the hellish creature, then swore violently as the thing spotted the incoming shot and frantically dived out of the way with a flap of its remaining wing. Her energy ball flew past, a few of the energy beams from it striking the monster and causing it to convulse, but not powerful enough to kill it.

"Fuck!" she growled, lining up another shot. As she fired a second time the first one hit the distant ruins and made them much more ruined in a huge flash of green light, shrapnel rising high into the air in ballistic arcs. She ignored that in favor of watching the next round head towards the monster, which _again_ avoided it.

"Fucking _hell!_" she shouted. "Hold fucking still so I can kill you properly, will you, you bastard?"

She fired again, and again, while running towards it. Each time the damned monster managed to _barely_ escape certain death. She had no idea how it was doing that, since it was so badly fucked up, but maybe it just wanted to live more than they usually did.

By the time she was a hundred yards from it, the buildings on the horizon were mostly not there any more, there was a rising column of boiling green energy coming from somewhere in that direction, and she was _extremely_ miffed. Stomping towards her quarry, she put the now-overheated gun away for the moment and pulled out her trusty chainsaw. Smiling like a serial killer she fired it up.

The monster looked at her, then screeched and attacked. She laughed and met it half way. 

* * *

Quite a long time later, after a number of other visits to strange places including several more of those semi-living ones that twitched when you blew holes in the walls, Taylor _finally_ found what she was looking for.

She stared at the absolutely enormous monster at the far end of the cavern.

It stared back.

The thing was at least sixty feet tall, had hooves, claws, wings, a tail, fur, scales, and god alone knew what else, and looked pissed. It was like someone had taken every mythological creature ever mentioned in literature and created a mashup of all of them. Bits of it seemed to extend into other dimensions, looking out of focus as if it was actually even larger than it should have been. She studied it closely, seeing the telltale signs of the same sort of odd energy that seemed to be all throughout this strange place. She was very familiar with it after all this time, and was pretty sure she could literally feel it inside her as well as around her. At first that had worried her a little, but nothing seemed to happen as a result so she'd stopped caring.

**"YOU ARE BECOMING AN IRRITATION, INSIGNIFICANT PEST,"** the thing suddenly said in an enormously loud voice full of anger.

She blinked. That was new.

None of them had ever spoken in anything she could understand before, although she was fairly certain that a number of the types of monster were actually not far off human intelligence.

This one was glaring at her with glowing eyes full of hate, and radiating a sensation of death and destruction.

She returned the glare, doing a pretty good job of radiating right back at it.

"_You_ are standing between me and the way home," she replied. "You can move or you can die."

Taylor was certain that the glowing portal she could see some distance past it was indeed the way to where she intended to go. It looked almost exactly like the one generated by the UAC machine and if it _wasn't_ the exit from this place, she was going to be seriously upset.

She might even go back and kill all the rest of the monsters that had run away, even if she had to follow them all across the universe, merely to get across quite how peeved she really was.

**"DIE?"** It chuckled in a basso profundo voice. Somehow what passed for a face distorted into what might have been a smile. **"YOU THINK YOU CAN POSSIBLY HURT ME YOU POINTLESS CREATURE?"**

"I'm willing to give it a shot," she snarled, hefting the rail gun menacingly. "And I don't give up. At all."

**"OTHERS HAVE TRIED. NONE HAVE SUCCEEDED,"** the thing chuckled nastily. All around her, she could feel and hear other monsters of all types closing in, but didn't bother looking. **"ONLY ONE HAS EVER COME CLOSE AND HE IS GONE. YOU ARE NOT HIM."**

Taylor smiled horribly.

_"I'm Taylor Hebert, you bastard, and you _**_never_**_ fuck with a Hebert,"_ she roared, firing the rail gun as fast as she could pull the trigger. As soon as it was empty she pulled out the chain gun and opened up on the huge creature, the cavern strobing brightly from the muzzle flashes. When the barrels spun down, she looked at the result.

The thing grinned back at her.

**"PITIFUL," **it laughed.

Her eyes narrowed.

"I've killed dragons, and demons, and aliens, and floated in space, and swum through lava, all to get home to my dad. I've put up with more shit than I can even talk about and _I have had _**_enough!_**" The fury was rising and she was literally seeing red. Something about the creature changed, making it almost look wary.

**"YOU CANNOT OVERCOME ME,"** it said, although there was an odd little note of… possibly worry, she noticed with the back of her mind, while the front of it was consumed with the white hot rage that abruptly swelled like a nuclear fireball.

"I haven't even started yet," she said evenly, her iron control holding her in place. Around her everything had gone silent as if the monsters she knew were out there were watching.

It raised a hand, energy forming around it. With an incredible shout of rage it let fly.

She was already moving, her mind awash with total all consuming fury that seemed to make everything slow down and become perfectly, beautifully focused.

Dismissing _everything_ else about herself, Taylor let the rage take her as she attacked. She was laughing like an idiot when they met in the middle of the huge cavern. 

* * *

Panting for breath, Taylor leaned against the wall, her eyes closed. She was dripping with sweat, aching all over, and her right arm was snapped in at least two places according to her armor's diagnostics.

After a long moment, she opened her eyes again and looked at the creature in front of her. It was in much worse condition than she was. One huge leg was lying on the floor some distance away, scorched and distorted, both wings were ruined, and all of its teeth were missing. The beast was staring at her in what looked like horrified terror from it's position on the floor, surrounded by bits of it that should by rights have been inside it.

**"IMPOSSIBLE,"** it muttered. **"WHAT ARE YOU?**_"_

_"_Very, very pissed off," she told it, while digging out some of the repair nanites and sticking them into the injection port on the side of her heavily scorched armor. The pain of the things working was irrelevant and went unnoticed. Straightening up she dropped the empty cartridge on the floor on top of the other eleven, then slowly smiled at it. "And now I'm going to end this and go home."

She pulled out Mr Death and very slowly pushed an energy cell into it, before activating the weapon.

The vast creature looked at her, visibly recoiling. **_"_I YIELD," **it said, in angry but scared tones.

Taylor looked at it for several seconds. "Tough," she said, then aimed and fired until the gun beeped empty.

As the echoes died away, she heard vast numbers of monsters chittering and rumbling in the dark outside the cavern, feeling them realizing what had happened and apparently being shocked and scared. The sounds gradually died away to leave complete silence. She walked over to the vast creature and looked into the slowly dimming eyes set in a ruined face. "I told you to move. You chose not to. I always finish what I start." Putting the gun away she cocked her fist, then hit it directly between the eyes as hard as she could.

The huge skull literally exploded, showering her and the entire area with glowing blood. She was entirely covered in it and watched as it seemed to sink into the armor a little as it the glow gradually faded, leaving the original greenish-black metallic surface a sort of matte purplish color. Various error codes flashed up then went away again as the system appeared to dislike the contact for a moment. She shivered as a wave of tiredness went through her, before deciding to indulge in one last nanite pack. Flicking gore from the injection port she stuck the thing in and activated it, the burn almost pleasant this time after the last six solid hours of fighting. Closing her eyes again she waited until the sensation died away, leaving her feeling, if not fully rested, at least back to something approaching normal. And her arm was now fine, which was good.

Opening her eyes again she looked around. Nothing was moving, not even a plasma imp, so she shrugged, reloaded all her weapons just in case, put them away except for the plasma rifle, and headed for the portal that she hoped was the way home.

"I've killed more things than I can possibly count, died over four hundred times, learned more about tech than any ten Tinkers, seen other worlds, _destroyed_ other worlds, and now I just want go home to my dad," she idly said as she reached the thing. "So I will be very, very, very angry if this doesn't lead me back." The girl looked meaningfully around at the enormous pools of dimming blood, internal organs, and total devastation. "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Don't fuck with me."

The little presence in the back of her mind that had been there through the entire fight abruptly vanished.

She smiled a little, and walked into the portal.

After everything she'd been through, home was going to be a nice change. And when she'd relaxed for a while, she could work out just who needed to be killed and how long this should take.

But before that, she needed her dad and a pizza.


	7. DOOMed VI: DOOM comes to Brockton Bay

A ripple in the air expanded into a pink mist, out of which a massively armored power-suit stepped, the figure hefting a huge gently humming energy gun like it was a toy. The matte purple helmet turned from side to side, reflections of the scenery showing in the golden faceplate.

There was a long pause.

Then there was a _lot_ of vicious swearing.

Really, one hell of a lot. For some minutes. To the level that small birds fell from the sky, trailing smoke.

Then the armored figure stomped off through undergrowth, still swearing under its breath, leaving deep footprints behind it. It pushed through everything in the way with a sort of remorseless negligence, only diverting its path when it came across a large pile of enormous boulders, at which point it turned and walked around them.

As the figure disappeared into the distance trailing obscenities in its wake, some of them in a language that no living thing on the planet had ever heard, silence fell once more.

A few minutes later, the pink mist left behind rippled again and a smaller figure came out of it. The humanoid creature, some five feet tall and strongly built, looking like a more upright version of some form of ape, but with horns and claws that would scare a rampaging tiger into hiding under the bed, also looked around. It seemed tense and worried but when it saw the footprints relaxed a little.

A sound from behind it made it whip around in a blur of motion and raise a hand, a ball of fire leaving it with a loud whoosh then impacting on the large bird that had incautiously squawked from its perch on an old tree some fifty yards away. Most of the tree vanished in the ensuing blast, with only a small cloud of feathers falling gently from the sky, burning and smoking on the way down.

The creature stared at the results, then carefully looked around, before going back into the mist. Not long after, it re-emerged, at the head of a column of bizarre figures that walked, slithered, flew, and floated across the ground, following the line of footprints. All of them were silent and seemed intent.

A massive green flash in the distance caused them all to stop and stare at the mushroom cloud of fire and smoke that rose over the horizon, a shock wave rolling over them several seconds later.

The creatures made a strange sound, then started moving again a little faster. They gave the impression that anything that got in the way was going to have a very bad, and most likely very short, day…

Once the last of them had vanished, the normal sounds of the area slowly resumed as wildlife came out of the horrified stupor it had fallen into, then very quickly went in the opposite direction. Not long after that, the entire area was as bare of any life smart enough to know when to get the fuck out of Dodge as any desert on the planet.

* * *

With an eye-wrenching distortion, space tore open again. The pink mist followed, and through it came the figure in armor. It looked around once more, then stared at the overcast sky and shouted a very rude word that made the entire area briefly shudder, before striding forth into the ruins of what appeared to have once been a small city. Smoke rose from a few places but other than that it was quiet and nothing moved.

Half a mile later, it stopped and watched as three humanoid _things_ came out of a half-wrecked concrete and stone building a hundred yards away. They looked pale, more or less female, and nearly but not quite human in a disturbing manner that would make a normal person very worried before running for his or her life.

The armored figure didn't look impressed. It lifted the energy gun and aimed it. "Move or die," it said. "I'm not in the mood and I'm going home."

The middle figure raised a hand, its long pale hair blowing in the breeze. Without the slightest hesitation the armored person fired. The figure was blown backwards in an explosion of plasma, the other two watching with what appeared to be shocked surprise, before they turned back, giving off a very dangerous air.

It wasn't even _close_ to the radiating fury coming from the person in armor who was almost literally glowing with anger, reality itself wavering around it as it stalked forward. "I warned you," it said with eerie calm, totally out of keeping with the aura of terror it was producing. Small animals hiding in nearby buildings that had frozen in instinctive terror fell over and twitched, before going still. The member of the trio who had been blown sixty yards into a building got to its feet, shuddered a little, then started running back, while the remaining two attacked.

An unnerving laugh came before the entire area lit up with weapons fire, screams, a lot of swearing, and ultimately several absolutely enormous blasts that accompanied a sound like the universe crying out in agony, something that carried for many miles. Then all was silent again.

When, a quarter of an hour later, the procession of strange creatures came through, they all stopped and looked at the quarter mile glass lined crater where a small city had once been. Many glances were exchanged. A ripple of sound went through the huge group, one that almost sounded… awe-struck.

Then the entire collection carefully rounded the crater, which glowed deep at the bottom with eldritch energies, and resumed following the footprints, which ultimately vanished into another cloud of pink mist.

* * *

A forest far in the northern lands, snow on the ground and the pine trees, the light of an aurora far above the only illumination, bore witness to a pink mist. Out of it came the armored figure, a different but no less lethal weapon ready for action. Again, it looked around. Again, it swore.

"This is beginning to annoy me," it said evenly. "I am definitely not seeing the funny side. Do _not_ push your luck." It moved off into the dark forest, the trees almost seeming to bend out of the way of the aura of dark rage it was emitting.

Many miles away, in a small log cabin half buried in snow, a man suddenly woke and stared into the dark. He didn't move a muscle but lay there rigid and lightly sweating for nearly half an hour. Dimly in the distance he could hear a couple of odd-sounding explosions, then all was quiet. He relaxed a little, but tensed again shortly after. His head lifted and seemed to follow something in the distance for a while, then finally he relaxed properly, sagging into his bed and letting out a breath.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead with a hand he looked at it in the dim rippling light coming through the window, shook his head, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

"_Not_ getting involved in _that_," he muttered in Russian, rather vehemently.

Soon the cabin echoed to even breathing with the occasional snore, while the forest surrounding him gradually came back to life and the dark shadows that seemed much deeper than they should have been turned into merely a lack of relative illumination instead of… something else. Something… terrifying.

* * *

"Oh, come _on!_" the person in armor shouted in apocalyptic fury as it peered from side to side. "You think this is _funny?_ **Really?** **Do you want** **me to come looking for you right now?**"

A sound from one of the apparently abandoned buildings to the side made it snap around and inspect it suspiciously, moving almost too fast to see the movement, the effect almost being like stop motion animation. A different weapon than the one it had been holding was suddenly in its hands. It peered carefully at the building, which emitted another strange sound.

Tilting its head, it chuckled unnervingly. "Oh, I see you in there," it said menacingly. "Yeah, you'd better hide. Not that it's going to help you much. I'm _really_ not in the right frame of mind to play games."

A different building made a different noise, which echoed throughout the otherwise weirdly silent city. With a mechanical grinding sound, something deep inside the darkened interior stirred.

Without looking back the armored person pointed the weapon it was holding to the side and fired twice. Blue balls of violently hot metallic plasma disappeared into the building which immediately erupted in tiny fragments, rising almost gracefully high into the air. A small device was tossed after the shots, moments later the remains of the building shuddering heavily as a strange sound accompanied a purple glow, before the entire thing imploded into a smoking hole.

Then the figure stalked into the first building. Moments later the shooting began once more.

Some time later, the procession of strange creatures appeared. The ones in front stopped, causing the entire crowd to do likewise, before with almost military precision the bulk of them fanned out into the remains of the city while the core group followed the trail of craters and wreckage. Peculiar sounds came from all around, along with whooshing fireballs, roaring rockets, constant blasts from many sources, and the occasional earth shattering kaboom. The flying creatures that produced these screamed in triumph before following the rest.

All was quiet after that, only the clinking sounds of super-heated metal slowly cooling from a molten state breaking the silence in what had once been a city long evacuated by the original owners, and now a wasteland that couldn't even properly be called ruins.

* * *

**"Right! That fucking does it! I'm going to absolutely fucking _wreck_ these fuckers, then if I'm not home I will find you and I will end you and I will fucking dance on your ashes, DO YOU HEAR ME?"**

The scream of unalloyed _rage _rang out over the entire area, causing thousands of demonic things to stop what they were doing instantly, then turn and as one stare towards where it came from. Deep underground their leader and god looked up, a worried expression crossing his distorted face, although he had no idea why a wave of terror had gone through him.

He never had time to find out.

By the time the trailing creatures came out of the pink mist, all that was left was an enormous hole that radiated heat and otherworldly energies, where nothing at all was left alive, not even microbes. It had been sterilized as efficiently as if the sun itself had touched down.

They looked around, then followed the trail. Soon the area was back to being a glass crater with nothing moving in it, surrounded by the remains of walls.

* * *

PRT ENE Director Emily Piggot looked at the somewhat unassuming, thin, and slightly balding man on the other side of her desk. She was doing everything in her power to stay calm.

He, strangely, was doing a better job of that than she was, but in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. For some reason she was feeling like she was locked in a room with something that would quite readily eat her liver and smile while it did, which was something she simply couldn't understand and didn't like one little bit. Behind her unwelcome visitor she could see Armsmaster and Miss Militia who both also looked oddly worried.

"Mr Hebert," she said in tones of command, "I still don't quite know why we're having this meeting. We've already told you that there's nothing we can help you with in this case. It's a matter for the police, not the PRT."

Danny Hebert, who was standing in the middle of the room with his arms by his sides, looking on the face of it entirely harmless, the civilian dock worker that the data they had on him said he was, still somehow managed to make her lean back slightly when he met her eyes.

"I will ask the question one more time, Director Piggot," he said completely calmly. "_Where. Is. My. Daughter?_"

"I have no idea," she replied, her voice betraying her unease and anger. "As I said, this is a police matter, not something we can help you with."

There was a pause, then he nodded once. "I see." He turned away. "I shall have to make further investigations myself, then, as you're unwilling to help." Moving towards the door, he almost absently added, "I'll track down Sophia Hess first, I think."

Director Piggot and the other two people present all froze.

"After all, as a Ward in Winslow, one who has been torturing my daughter for close to two years, and who was the last one to see her before she vanished, I'm sure she could shed some light on this matter," he added as he reached for the door handle. He looked back at her, the overhead lights reflecting from his glasses. "I doubt she wants to talk about it but I can be persuasive." The man smiled slightly. "Comes from years of negotiating contracts and suchlike, you see. You learn what to say to people to make them agree to your… requirements."

Emily opened her mouth, feeling a sensation in the pit of her stomach she didn't much like.

"Sometimes it's how you say it rather than what you say," he continued with what looked almost like a serene cheerfulness, which was making her skin crawl. "I'm very good at this sort of thing."

Armsmaster put his hand on the door. "How did you know about Sophia Hess?" he grated.

Hebert didn't take his eyes off Emily's, but he replied calmly and quietly, "It doesn't take a genius to work out from the clues left in the journal Taylor wrote to work out that many of the things she described would best be explained as the effects of a Parahuman ability. She replaced the lock on her locker several times, but those girls always got into it. Even when she brought in a much better one than the school issued locks, one from our basement, it didn't stop them. Either she was being attacked by a professional locksmith, which seemed unlikely, or someone with the ability to open her locker without a trace then close it again, or possibly access the inside of it _without_ opening it, was involved. I did a little research, asked some people I know, and wouldn't you know it, one of the Wards here in Brockton is a Parahuman who can walk through walls."

He smiled somewhat grimly and adjusted his glasses with one hand. Emily couldn't look away. "Lots of rumors that a Ward attended Winslow are going around too, of course. Shadow Stalker is known to be… shall we say, somewhat antisocial at best? It's unlikely that someone of that… attitude… would do well in Arcadia where it's known that most of the Wards attend. I made a few inquiries, asked a few people I know who have kids in Arcadia, and no one could think of someone who appeared to have the rather distinctive personality traits that Shadow Stalker was said to show. On the other hand, there were _several_ people who mentioned that Sophia Hess was… Well, not to put too fine a point on it, a violent bitch as someone told me. Emma Barnes is too short to be Shadow Stalker, Madison Clements is _much_ too short, but Sophia Hess matches the body type your own promotional literature shows perfectly."

He stared at her as she looked back, aghast. Armsmaster still had his hand on the door but was listening intently, while Miss Militia's eyes were closed in what looked like pain.

"A little more investigating brought up the interesting point that Shadow Stalker had apparently come very close to killing several criminals over the last year or two, using those crossbows she carries. Oddly enough you might like to know that at least two of those cases were after she joined the Wards."

Emily winced.

"So, yes, I know that Shadow Stalker is Sophia Hess, or at least I was ninety percent sure of it, until Armsmaster here confirmed it for me. Thanks for that, by the way."

Armsmaster winced.

"I'll be having words with Alan Barnes and Emma too, of course, and the Clements family, but right now I think I should talk to Sophia. It's been two weeks since Taylor disappeared from that locker your pet psychopath and her associates pushed her into. The school doesn't want to help for some reason, which I can guess is a mix of incompetence and corruption although I'm not sure of the percentages yet, the cops aren't doing anything useful, and from what I've been told off the record by a couple of contacts, this is due to PRT interference. Again, yet more evidence that a Parahuman was involved." His voice was still completely controlled but there was a level of danger under it that made all three of the others listen whether they wanted to or not.

"I'd be the first person to admit I haven't been a very good father to my daughter for a lot longer than it should have been for reasons that we don't need to go into, but I'm _fucked_ if I'm going to just sit and wait for someone to finally get around to doing what they're paid to do. It looks like that will never happen in any case. So, unless you can tell me _right_ _now_ where Taylor is and what happened to her, I will arrange to look for her with my own resources, regardless of your wishes or interference. And god help all of you if you get in my way, because I can guarantee you won't like what happens if you _do_."

"Are you threatening us, Mr Hebert?" Armsmaster said grimly.

Danny Hebert turned his head to meet the Tinker's eyes through his visor.

"Yes. Although I think of it more as a promise."

This time, Miss Militia was the one who winced. Armsmaster glowered.

"Everything you've said is covered by an NDA which you will have to sign before you can be allowed to leave, and if you mention anything at all about this you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Armsmaster growled.

"An NDA signed under duress is not valid, and neither can one be used to cover up an illegal act," the horrible man said without raising his voice. "Basic contract law even in this day and age. If you attempt to stop me, I will use every resource I have available to make totally certain that everyone involved in this from the Chief Director down to the PRT janitors has their careers ruined and with any luck ends up in jail. I've already got more than enough evidence to give the press the scoop of a lifetime." He leaned a little closer. "Just fucking _try_ me, Armsmaster."

"We can arrest you," the Tinker snarled.

"You can, yes. I'm willing to go to jail for my daughter. And if I do that, in about… twelve hours, give or take, every news organization in the world will get everything I've gathered about how unbelievably incompetently this entire situation has been handled, along with the names of every single person involved, how, and why." He smiled in a rather bloodthirsty manner as Emily felt her heart sink into her boots. "I'm not an idiot, I took precautions before coming in here. And I very much doubt you can find all the copies of the data I have in time. I sent it off days ago. I also made certain to take precautions in case someone got the bright idea to… encourage me… to talk. So, either you do your goddamn jobs and _find my daughter_, or get out of the way and let me do it. Your choice."

"And if we call your bluff?" Armsmaster said, sounding furious.

Hebert adjusted his glasses again. "Oh, trust me, it's not a bluff. You really don't want to push me on this. I have nothing to lose right now and you people have _everything_ to lose. And I'd hate to have to _really_ get serious..." He trailed off, then shrugged a little. "Hopefully it won't come to that."

As Emily was about to try to say something to get the situation back under what little control it had started with, since she could see Armsmaster was at the point of doing something more idiotic than usual, there was a brilliant greenish flash outside the window. The dark of the late winter evening gave way to virtual daylight for a second or two, making her violently twitch and spin in her chair to look out across the city. Far off towards the docks a weirdly colored fireball was rising into the sky, dimming as it slowly faded. Alarms went off all over the place, then several seconds later an enormous detonation shook the entire building.

"What the _fuck_ was that?" she shouted, struggling to her feet and moving to the window in an attempt to work out where the blast had come from. She could see glass falling to the street from some of the other buildings in view from the shockwave although the PRT building was hardened against such damage.

Armsmaster and Miss Militia joined her at the window, all three of them watching as the fireball ascended into the night sky and faded from view. The effect was that of a very small nuclear weapon, she thought in horrified awe. Left behind past the buildings she could see a glowing area that was rather more slowly dimming away.

"That was Winslow school," Miss Militia said in horror.

A moment later, Emily turned quickly around as she remembered the final person in the room.

Danny Hebert was gone.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," she mumbled, "I have a _really_ bad feeling about this..."

* * *

Taylor inspected where the school had been with grim approval. It was a good start, but there were a lot of other things she needed to do quite soon. In the distance sirens were going mad but she ignored them as irrelevant.

The sound of tires crunching through the rubble scattered all over the roads for a couple of blocks in every direction, on the other hand, made her turn, weapon ready, until she recognized the car. The vehicle stopped a few yards away and a familiar figure got out, silhouetted against the burning building on the other side of the road.

She smiled inside her armor, put her gun away, and walked over.

"I'm back, Dad," she said as she reached out and hugged him.

"Looks like you had an interesting time," he said, almost calmly, although she could see tears in his eyes under his glasses.

"You could put it like that, yeah," she said with a laugh as she let go and reached up to take her helmet off for the first time in what seemed like months. Fresh air, a sensation she'd nearly forgotten, caressed her face, bringing with it the smell of smoke and plasma discharges. She noticed that she was eye to eye with her father which was a little odd since he was about six foot five, but she ignored that for the moment.

"Sorry I took so long, you wouldn't believe the trouble I've had finding my way back," she added, with a slightly uneven smile. He looked her up and down, then nodded.

"You came back. That's all that matters."

She hugged him again.

When she let go once more, she looked around, then rather dubiously at the car, which she doubted was up to the weight of her power armor. He followed her eyes, then looked at her again in an evaluating manner. "I think you'll have to follow me."

"Can we get a pizza on the way?" she asked hopefully. "You have no _idea_ how much I'm looking forward to one."

He laughed. "Of course. You can have all the pizza you want. Sergio's?"

Taylor grinned. "You read my mind."

With a smile, he got back into the car, and as she jogged alongside it, drove off into the night.

By the time the sirens, complete with an enormous number of emergency vehicles from everyone from the fire department to the PRT had arrived some minutes later, the area was still once more, only the crackling of burning wood audible.

A last few strange shadows disappeared into the dark but no one noticed as they were much more concerned with where Winslow wasn't.


	8. DOOMed VII: The Coming of the Who?

_Three days before The Winslow Event_

Three teenagers looked around as the fourth one of their group shambled into the shared living area, looking like she'd been punched in the brain. Her face was slack yet somehow also contorted into a rictus of horror and fear. All her friends stared as she leaned against the wall and just looked into space.

"Jesus, are you all right?" the larger of the two young men asked with a worried note in his voice, putting his game controller down and standing up, then walking towards her.

**"SHE COMES,"** the blonde girl said absently in a way that made him, and the other two, freeze. Downstairs three dogs yipped like they'd been kicked then went silent again.

Then the girl very gently fell over, face forward, as unconsciousness took her. By the expression she was wearing it was something of a blessed relief. Her friend only just caught her before her nose met the floor with no doubt unfortunate consequences.

Easing her to the ground, he examined her, then looked at the other two, who were watching with very confused faces.

"Who comes?" the younger man asked plaintively. "Why does she come? When does she come? _What the _**_fuck_**_ was _**_that?_**"

The first one looked down at the girl he was kneeling next to and shrugged helplessly.

None of them got much sleep that night. 

* * *

A twelve year old girl sat bolt upright in bed, her eyes wide in the dark of her room. **"100% CHANCE SHE COMES,"** the girl said without meaning to, then slapped her hands over her mouth. She winced in anticipation before looking puzzled about something.

Then she got a very curious look, muttered to herself for a while, before grinning in a completely diabolical manner and lying down again. When she fell asleep she was still wearing a distinct smirk, which was present the next morning at breakfast, but she wouldn't be drawn by her parents as to why she looked like that. 

* * *

Deep under the middle of the city, a skeletal man shrieked in horror, screamed **"SHE COMES,"** at the top of his voice, fell off his chair, then cowered under his desk for the rest of the night until he eventually passed out from terror. When he woke up he couldn't remember why he'd apparently slept under his desk, and was not happy about having apparently had something of an accident in the urination department. 

* * *

In San Francisco, in a government building that from the outside looked like nothing other than a fairly boring office, nearly a dozen people in an equivalent number of rooms stiffened, sweated, and simultaneously said **"SHE COMES."**

Then two of them passed out, one had a mild stroke and was quickly surrounded by a very worried EMT team, another one hid in a closet, and the last two clocked out, went home, and got very, very drunk. Their superiors spent the rest of the night in emergency meetings but found no answers that anyone liked. They did, however, classify the incident at the highest level and go out of their way not to let anyone else know about it except for a select few people in government, none of whom were particularly happy about the situation. 

* * *

Inside the highest security prison on the planet, a number of the prisoners all said, screamed, or shouted **"SHE COMES."** Most of them fell unconscious immediately, one or two even before they spoke, although that didn't stop them.

One, by appearance a young teen girl, stared off into space while gently rocking back and forth holding her knees whispering **"SHE COMES,"** under her breath for the next few hours, before finally climbing into her bed and very deliberately falling asleep. 

* * *

Similar scenes occurred all over the world, at what would eventually be found to be the exact same moment, but since many of the people involved were either criminals, or members of government organization that spent considerable effort not to mention their activities to anyone especially other such organizations, no one would work this out for some time. When they did, of course, it didn't really help. 

* * *

_Two days before The Winslow Event_

In her room, a blonde teenager of about seventeen or so moaned, while her friends watched her with sympathy, even the two that were pretty bad with people. "She looks horrible," the younger male pointed out.

"Yeah, you don't _have_ to keep saying that, you know," the older one said.

The other girl shoved the younger man and muttered, "Shut up, you're annoying."

"I know," he replied, smirking, which got him another shove.

The blonde suddenly sat up, taking all of them by surprise, especially as her eyes were still closed.

**"SHE IS CLOSER NOW!"** the girl said in a loud and eerie voice, before going boneless and falling back into her bed. **"SHE COMES."**

The other three remained pressed against the wall as far away as possible from their friend for several minutes, watching her closely with wide eyes, until she began to snore gently.

"I don't know that I really want to meet _her_," the youngest of them said, his voice wavering.

His friends nodded soberly. They weren't keen in it either. 

* * *

Miles away, a tall young man with an unusual ability suddenly woke in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. His ability was for some reason giving him the distinct impression that it was very, very worried about something. What that was he had no idea aside from being totally sure that it was **very angry_. _**And getting closer.

The worst part was that he didn't have a clue why he felt that way. Which worried him nearly as much as his own special ability appeared to be.

He lay there for hours, his heart racing, until he finally got up, went into the living room at about four AM, dug out a bottle of his father's best bourbon, cracked the seal on it, drank about half a cup of the stuff without hesitation, put it back, then returned to bed. He was snoring minutes later and woke up to the most vicious headache he'd ever experienced and a very annoyed father who was completely unsympathetic and spent quite a long time explaining how much it cost and how he was going to be replacing it. 

* * *

The skeletally thin man finished locking the last door between him and the outside world, making sure that all the newly installed traps and other precautions he'd hastily arranged were armed. Unusually for him he was _so_ worried that he hadn't used his own special skill to ensure he had a backup outside his current location, because when he'd tried that he'd spent nearly an hour screaming in horror. And he couldn't remember why.

Sure he was under attack, he put himself into the deepest hole he could arrange on short notice and basically pulled it in after him. Outside, on the other side of six separate blast doors, the codes for which he was the only one that knew, several dozen armed and somewhat puzzled men patrolled, on heightened alert and ready for anything.

**"SHE IS CLOSER NOW!"**

He blinked, looking around quizzically. He could have _sworn_ someone had said something. But he was absolutely certain he was alone…

Picking up the machine gun at his elbow, he suspiciously prowled his secure apartment, the weapon leading the way, until in the end he satisfied himself that he really _was_ alone. Putting the gun down again he poured himself another coffee and went back to obsessively watching dozens of screens on which camera views of every possible approach to his secure bunker were displayed.

Every now and then, he looked around, subconsciously reacting to a sensation that something was getting closer without even realizing it. 

* * *

Smiling a little, in a dark way that would have made her parents exchange glances then start very carefully asking leading questions, a twelve-year-old brunette girl lay in bed and thought.

**"SHE IS CLOSER NOW!"** the girl whispered under her breath, then giggled somewhat oddly.

She dreamed of strange things and impossible places. 

* * *

Governments around the world became even more alert to…_something_.

The problem was that they had no idea _what_, which made life considerably more difficult than ideal, which in turn made them very grumpy.

Grumpy governments seldom end up _helping_. 

* * *

_One day before The Winslow Event_

**"SHE IS NEARLY HERE!"**

The blonde looked earnestly at her by now more than a little scared friends. The other girl was surrounded by dogs, all of whom were trying to sit on her lap at the same time and all of whom were whimpering.

"You know, that doesn't actually fill me with confidence," the younger of the two men said, in a somewhat higher pitch than he liked.

Neither of his friends could honestly dispute this. And the remaining one seemed to be lost inside her own head, which by the look on her face wasn't a particularly comfortable place to be right now. 

* * *

Putting his helmet on, the last part of his power armor, the tall young man shivered.

"Problem?" one of his friends and co-workers asked, apparently noticing.

"No," he replied, lying through his teeth, which he could get away with since none of the others had the same ability he was currently wishing _he_ didn't have. Mostly because it was _somehow_ staring off in a direction that didn't exist and trembling, which was the most unnerving thing he'd ever experienced and something he deeply wished he wasn't experiencing _now_.

"Just a little cold," he added. "It snowed again last night and I guess I'm feeling it."

"Yeah, it's pretty chilly out there tonight," his friend nodded as he put his own mask on. "Glad we're only doing a short patrol, this isn't the warmest clothing I've ever worn." The Hispanic teenager slapped his friend on the back in a comradely manner. "Come on, sooner we get out there the sooner we get back inside where it's warm."

The armored teen nodded, not really listening. He was trying to work out why he had the urge to hide under something very heavy with his eyes shut… 

* * *

The twelve year old girl produced a faint snigger as she wrote in a small notebook under the illumination of her bedside lamp which she'd sneakily turned on in defiance of her bedtime.

**"SHE IS NEARLY HERE!" **she said very quietly under her breath. In a more normal, although still somewhat disturbing voice, she added "100% chance of a fucker getting fucked."

Giggling a little, she closed the book, put it under her pillow, and turned the light out. 

* * *

Around the world, people prepared. They had no idea for what, as none of the usual or predicted problems appeared to be active. Every asset available was tasked to investigate even the most outlandish concepts, none of which came up with any real explanation to what was going on, although almost accidentally a surprisingly large number of nefarious plots were foiled in the process.

This didn't really make them as pleased as it usually would have done, sadly.

Some people are never satisfied. 

* * *

_Five hours before The Winslow Event_

"What do you mean, Moord Nag is dead? _How?_"

"No one is sure but the thermal bloom on the satellite was off the scale, sir."

"Get a team out there _right now_."

* * *

_Four hours before The Winslow Event_

"Großer Gott, wo ist die Stadt hin? Ist der Krater radioaktiv?"

"Anscheinend nicht, aber der Durchmesser beträgt fast einen halben Kilometer, und noch weiß niemand genau wie tief er ist."

"Wir brauchen sofort eine Einsatztruppe vor Ort, volle Schutzausrüstung."

"Jawohl." 

* * *

_Three hours before The Winslow Event_

"Что происходит? ОН проснулся?"

"Не хотелось бы. Из зоны ни слуху ни духу не было уже много лет."

"Так что? Досматривать зону будем или как?"

"А толку? Если это всё-таки ОН, что мы можем сделать? А если не он, какой нам резон его злить ещё больше?"

"Куда не кинь - всюду клин..." 

* * *

_Two hours before The Winslow Event_

"Fuck me, what the hell was _that?! _Who authorized heavy weapons?"

"Unknown, sir. We have no record of any Blaster or Tinker on site. In fact, there isn't _anyone_ on site at the moment."

"Get a bird in the air, I want full surveillance of the entire area immediately. Call Washington and get backup out here as soon as possible."

"On it, sir." 

* * *

_One hour before The Winslow Event_

_"Perimeter breach, unknown method, intruder on site!"_

"Is it one of ours?"

"No, we don't know _who_ it is. Or how they got inside."

"Teleporter?"

"Possibly, but nothing like anything we've… FUCK!"

"WHAT IN GOD'S NAME?"

"Oh dear lord, what's _that?!_"

"I have no fucking idea but it's the angriest thing I've ever seen in my life."

"It's looking right at us!"

"**EVACUATE! EVACUATE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! ALL PERSONNEL EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY! DO NOT STOP TO COLLECT ANYTHING! FALL BACK TO SECONDARY POSITIONS!**" 

* * *

_Two minutes before The Winslow Event_

**_"SHE HAS COME!"_**

The three conscious members of the group looked at each other, then at their blonde friend, who was sitting on her bed staring at the ceiling with wide eyes.

All of them, very slowly, followed her gaze.

There was a very long pause.

"You see anything?"

"No."

"Me either."

"Does that make you feel less worried?"

"No."

"Me either."

An enormously bright white-green flash soundlessly illuminated the entire building, the glare building over half a second or so to a painful intensity even through the mostly boarded up windows and making them all flinch violently. The detonation that followed five seconds later shook the entire place like a small earthquake, causing all them to hit the floor with their hands over their heads. When the rumble died away, the blonde girl blinked a couple of times, apparently back in the room for the first time in several days.

"Why are you guys in my bedroom?" she asked quizzically. "And on the floor?"

She tilted her head. "And why are there so many sirens going off out there?"

The other three slowly stood up, exchanged glances, then the two young men grabbed her arms and over her protestations carried her down the stairs while their remaining friend hastily packed everything important. In a surprisingly short period of time they were in a slightly-stolen van heading away from the direction the blast, which had been upsettingly close, had come from.

The blonde was still bitching as they drove but that didn't stop them. 

* * *

In his underground room, the thin man fell over as the entire place shook, then lay on the ground staring at the roof with trepidation in his eyes. That wasn't good, whatever it was. 

* * *

The tall young man froze, making his girlfriend look at him then appear worried, before slowly tipping to the side, his face locked in a look of horror.

Calling for her sister the blonde caught him and lowered him to the carpet, very worried indeed. When the other girl came running into the living room she was gently slapping her boyfriend's face and trying to get him to wake up, without success. 

* * *

Smiling to herself the twelve year old girl watched out her bedroom window as a fading green glow many miles away in the city showed where something unusual had happened, rather loudly. She could see what looked like every emergency vehicle in the city heading in that direction from her position up on the hill overlooking the city center. It had taken them some time to get going, she'd noted, presumably having been waiting for more information, but now it was getting very busy out there.

As her parents came into the room to check on her, she let the curtain fall back into place and turned to them. "That was really loud," she said mildly. "I wonder what it was?"

Her mother knelt down and hugged her, but the girl wasn't sure if it was to comfort _her_ or the older woman… 

* * *

_Twenty minutes after The Winslow Event_

Sergio Ricardelli watched as the young woman wearing the most lethal looking power armor he'd ever seen even on TV peered at the menu. "Anchovies?" she muttered. "Yuck."

They were an acquired taste, he agreed silently, although he quite liked them.

"Quiet tonight, Sergio?" Danny Hebert, someone he knew quite well, said from beside his daughter as he looked up from his own menu.

Sergio shrugged a little. "Comes and goes. It's not too bad, considering what the weather's been like recently."

"Ah, yes, that would certainly put people off," Danny agreed with a nod. He glanced at the menu again, then added, "I'll have the house special with extra jalapenos, thanks. And a coke."

"Sure." Sergio wrote it down.

The girl moved her helmet to the side on the table and turned the menu over. "Two chicken, bacon, and pepperoni with barbecue sauce, please," she said. "And I'll have extra jalapenos as well. And…" She turned to the back of the menu for a moment. "A large sprite."

"OK. Hungry, then?"

She smiled at him. "I've had a very long day, and worked up an appetite," she replied.

He nodded. Writing her order down as well, he smiled back. "Won't be long. Help yourself to water if you want, and the bread sticks are fresh."

"Thanks." She took one and nibbled on it as he walked off. "Hey, Dad, you won't believe some of the stuff I picked up," he heard her say as he went into the kitchen.

Shaking his head, he nudged one of his cooks, who was staring out through the small window in the door. "It's Brockton Bay, you get used to it," he said to his cousin.

Gino shook his head. "Mom said this place was weird but I always thought she was pulling my leg," he replied as he moved to the oven and opened it to check the progress of the current order.

Sergio shrugged. "Like I said, you get used to it. I've seen stranger things come through that door."

"Huh."

They got to work, ignoring the noise as half a dozen emergency vehicles went past. Again, it wasn't exactly unusual around these parts and they had customers to deal with.


	9. DOOMed VIII: Realizations of DOOM

"Oh my _god_."

Emily didn't bother to look around to glare at whoever had said that, since she was thinking the same exact thing. The air in the PRT control center was simultaneously hyper-alert and almost stunned silent. Only the sound of humming fans, a number of people breathing, and a few quiet alarms going off every now and then broke the quiet.

"Perimeter established at a quarter mile around the school," one of the control room staff said a few seconds later. "BBPD is evacuating anyone near the event site to a safe distance, with BBFD aid. PRT backup is requested."

"Approved," she replied without looking away from the main screen on which a high resolution image being transmitted from one of the PRT surveillance aircraft was displayed. The VTOL was hovering some half a mile up and away from the place where Winslow _used_ to be.

'_Used to be_' was definitely the correct term, she thought with dismayed, horrified fascination. Whatever had hit it had completely erased the entire site from existence. Now all that was left was a crater some three hundred yards in diameter and as far as they could make out nearly sixty deep, which was slowly cooling from what had to have been a preposterous temperature. It was certainly more than enough to have vitrified the ground inside it, although what had actually happened to most of the mass of the school itself and the land under it was anyone's guess at this point.

The center of the crater still glowed with some strange greenish energy, the sight worrying her a lot as it didn't match anything she was aware of, which meant it was new. New, as far as Parahuman problems went, which this _obviously_ was, meant trouble.

Always.

Trouble in this case backed up by the evidence that whatever did it could basically vaporize a large building complex in a literal flash of light leaving nothing but a hole she was pretty sure was going to look like something from the old atomic bomb tests in Nevada when it finally cooled to ambient temperature. She had the absent thought about what the hell the city would do with a three hundred yard glass lined hole in the ground. Probably turn it into a pond or something, since there didn't seem to be any other use for it.

She hoped like hell no one had been in the school at the time. It would have been painless, that was about the only bright spot, since they'd never find any traces.

"VTOL-1, orbit left, maintain distance from site," the flight controller said into his microphone.

_"Roger, orbit left at constant distance,"_ the pilot replied, the view of the crater starting to slowly rotate although it remained in the center of the image. As the night background of Brockton Bay slid past, she could see a seething mass of emergency vehicle lights in various streets leading towards the former site of the school, all the roads blocked by barricades with their own amber beacons blinking in the distance.

"Radiation levels still read zero, peak crater temperature two thousand four hundred forty degrees and falling, average temperature nine hundred fifty degrees. Crater diameter measures as two hundred and eighty seven yards. Near-perfect circularity." The sensor operator poked a couple of touch controls as he spoke.

"What's causing that green glow?" she asked.

"Unknown, Director. Nothing on record matches."

"Wonderful," Deputy Director Renick muttered from beside her. He clearly also didn't like the implications.

_"We can see a few small fires burning in the surrounding buildings, but the collateral damage is remarkably small,"_ the pilot said after he'd circumnavigated about a quarter of the way around the crater. _"Thermal interference from the blast site is interfering with our equipment but as far as we can tell there's no sign of motion down there."_

"There aren't many people who live close to the school," Renick commented quietly. "It used to be in a fairly good area but that was back when the Docks were active. These days everyone who could have moved has done so, which means there's probably only a few vagrants who are within at least a couple of hundred yards at the nearest at night. Off to the west the closest neighborhood is a good half mile away, although it's less on the north side. Still outside the perimeter we've set up for the most part."

"Thank god for that," Emily replied, still watching the images. The visible light one was showing the grain typical of a camera running right at the limit of its light handling capacity, but it gave a reasonably good picture even so. To the sides other screens showed a view from the night vision camera in the same sensor pod, as well as a high resolution thermal imager. This was showing the crater as a brilliant white spot with almost no variation, dimming to yellows, reds, and finally blues as one moved further from it. The half dozen small fires that had probably been started by radiated heat from whatever caused the destruction also showed up nicely, but luckily didn't seem inclined to grow. One of them was already guttering out.

_"Hey, what's that?"_ someone else in the aircraft said.

_"What?"_ the pilot replied as they all listened.

_"Twenty five degrees to port, about a third of a mile towards the south… I thought I saw something on thermal. Several somethings. Heading deeper into the dock area."_

_"Probably rough sleepers running for their lives,"_ one of the other aircrew said with a faint laugh in her voice. _"Which is the sane thing to do."_

_"I'm… not sure,"_ the sensor operator replied rather doubtfully after a moment. _"Looked larger than that. A mix of sizes, actually, but..." _He paused, then added,_ "Nothing there now as far as I can see. Might have been a sensor glitch. Or it was some Merchants who are hiding somewhere now."_

_"Control, should we do a pass towards the water and chase up that sighting?"_ the pilot asked.

Looking over his shoulder at Emily who thought for a moment then shook her head, the flight controller replied, "Negative, VTOL 1, remain in position. We'll task another aircraft to investigate but we didn't see anything here so it probably was a sensor fault."

_"Roger."_

Emily wasn't interested in chasing possibly phantom drug dealers at the moment. In her view, running like hell from whatever had done this was entirely sensible and not something worth bothering with.

Finding out what _had_ done it and what in god's name had _happened_ was far, far more important.

She couldn't help thinking, with a sort of horrified anticipation, that _somehow_ the Hebert man was involved. Not that she had the faintest idea _how_, but the way he'd managed to slip out of the building without a trace in minutes was… somewhat unnerving. Especially in light of the things he'd said and his obvious mood at the time.

There was definitely more to that man than appearances would suggest.

No one had stopped him since no one had any _reason_ to stop him. They were too busy dealing with the sudden influx of terrified Brocktonians who were jamming every phone line into the facility, liaising with the BBPD who were doing much the same on the direct lines, and trying to work out what the fuck was going on. One less civilian in the building was something to be grateful for. By the time she'd ordered a lockdown having suddenly thought that this might be something one of the gangs was doing as a diversion before they attacked the PRT building itself he was long gone, having simply signed out of his evening appointment with her, smiled at the receptionist, and left. None of the staff paid any attention as they were somewhat busy.

And of course by the time the VTOL preflight had been done, which even under these circumstances was several minutes work, the BBPD had been told _not_ to go charging in since no one knew what Parahuman was attacking, not that they seemed inclined to do that anyway, and all the other emergency preparations had been dealt with… Well, he'd had a good twenty minutes lead. She had no idea where he'd gone, but hoped it was home and out of her hair.

Looking at the screen, she _really_ hoped that was where he'd gone...

So why did she have a sensation in the pit of her stomach that the other boot was gathering speed as it dropped from orbit? 

* * *

"Lots of excitement out there," Danny said as he glanced up from his pizza. Yet another fire engine had gone past, sliding around the corner down the block with sirens and lights going full tilt. It dopplered into the distance, the sound of squealing tires coming back to them as it rounded the corner at the far end of the street. He thought it probably was taking this route to go around where Taylor's school once was, as that entire area was now blocked off from what he could tell.

"People get worked up about the silliest things," his daughter smiled, half-way through her second pizza and looking like a third one wasn't out of the question. He smirked slightly, nodding, as he returned his attention to her.

She looked good, he thought. Physically healthy, more so than she'd been when she disappeared two horrible weeks gone now, and while a little thinner in the face, seemed in good spirits. He'd noticed immediately that she also looked somewhat older, perhaps eighteen or so, and was definitely taller. Apparently her trip had been somewhat more extensive than normal.

Her eyes met his and she smiled again. He watched her with interest as she looked down and picked up another slice. It was when you peered into her eyes that you realized that the young girl of before had gone through things that very, very few people could possibly have understood or handled.

He was extremely proud of her, even without hearing much of the story yet. And if all the evidence he'd assembled about her life over the last two years before that attack from her supposed best friend and the other two was even vaguely accurate he didn't blame her in the slightest for removing the school with prejudice. And a very large weapon.

Taking another drink, he put his glass down, then picked up one of the thick manuals, printed on something that looked like but wasn't paper, and read the title and date once again. His mouth quirked slightly. "I think you have a lot of things to discuss, Taylor," he said mildly, leafing through the document for a moment, then stopping on one page and inspecting it with interest. "But you sure found some interesting souvenirs."

She chuckled, finishing the pizza and picking up the menu again. As she looked at it, she replied, "That I did. All over the place." Her eyes met his over the menu for a moment. "If I could pick it up, I took it."

"Always the best approach," he grinned. "You never know when something might come in handy."

"Very true," she nodded, before turning and waving to Sergio, who was watching a small TV behind the counter. He looked up at the motion then came over. "That was delicious," she said approvingly, making him smile. "You've got no idea how long I was looking forward to it. I think I'd like another one."

He raised an eyebrow but nodded approvingly. "Same again, or something different?"

"Can I have one of the seafood ones? Extra calamari." Her smile turned a little odd. "I need to eat some tentacles at the moment. Kind of revenge."

He looked at her, then at Danny, who shrugged. "Ah… sure, whatever you say. A large?"

"Yep. Thanks." She waved her glass. "Another sprite too, please."

"Of course. Danny, another coke?"

"Yes please. And some garlic bread."

"No problem." Sergio finished writing on his pad, then disappeared into the kitchen again. The bell over the door rang causing both Heberts to look, seeing a somewhat scruffy man carrying a baseball bat come in. He got about ten feet inside, spotted them, gaped at Taylor who very slowly started to stand up, then turned and hastily left without saying a word. He was distinctly pale under the buzz cut. Outside, they watched him talk urgently to another man, pointing through the window at them.

Taylor waved and grinned widely in a very unpleasant manner.

Both of them quickly ran off.

Danny snickered. "Nicely done."

"Thanks," she replied.

When Sergio came back with the next batch of food, they were talking quietly as Danny flipped through a few more of the apparently inexhaustible supply of manuals Taylor kept producing. 

* * *

Sitting in a chair in front of one of the consoles Emily studied the monitor in front of her, then glanced up at the big array of them on the wall. The aircraft was still slowly orbiting the site of whatever had turned a school into a hole in the ground, and the dim glow at the bottom of the aforementioned hole was almost invisible now. The crater was still very hot, far past the point of survivability, but was steadily cooling down too. The estimate was that it would reach a safe temperature in about two days at the current rate of cooling, although if it snowed, which was forecast to happen tomorrow, that might take a few hours off.

Nearly an hour of remote readings, including sending in an advanced drone that Dragon had left with Armsmaster some months ago, had shown that there was nothing obviously hazardous at the site. No traces of explosives, radiation, chemical agents, or anything else they could think of were present even at minuscule levels, so she'd finally authorized a manned inspection.

Armsmaster himself had been chafing at the bit and had barely listened when she'd flatly ordered him to keep his ass behind the security cordon. Admittedly she _technically_ wasn't his superior, but he normally followed procedure well enough to have made him reflexively agree. She suspected Dragon was also telling him to wait and not just go charging in like an idiot. They hadn't known, and _still_ didn't know, what was going on, but at least now they knew it appeared safe to investigate.

Assuming that whatever had caused it wasn't still there, waiting…

She shook her head feeling that her paranoia was getting to her. _Someone_ needed to go in, and it certainly wasn't going to be _her_. Leaving her physical infirmities out of the equation she'd been in the situation of going into an unknown scenario before and still had nightmares about it. This was someone else's turn.

The picture on the monitor she was watching now was from the camera on top of the PRT APC that had taken Armsmaster and a heavily armed team into close proximity of the blast site. Initially he'd planned on going in on his iconic bike but had decided that there was simply too much equipment needed, so the APC was required, which meant it was more efficient to go with it instead of on his own transportation. For once Emily agreed with him. The view gently wobbled as the large vehicle made its way over rubble in the street, giving the camera stabilization system a good workout, then went rock steady as it stopped a hundred feet or so from the rim of the crater. Floodlights on the roof brightly illuminated the entire area like daylight, letting them see just how enormous the hole in the scenery really was.

They couldn't even _see_ the other side…

"Fuck me," the man running comms to the field team said as everyone stared at the screen. "How in god's name could that be done without taking out the entire _city?_"

There was, as yet, no answer to what was a very good question.

Someone else called over from the side. "Director? I've got Mayor Christner on the phone. He's not in a good mood."

"Tell him we don't know anything more now than we did ten minutes ago and I'll be in contact when we do, but right now I have something more important than keeping the city happy," she snapped.

The man flinched, then rather more diplomatically paraphrased her words to the Mayor as she kept watching the screens. Prodding a control she switched the one she was in front of to the view from Armsmaster's helmet camera, which came up just as he climbed out of the back of the vehicle. He was accompanied by a four man squad in NBC gear, he himself relying on his armor for the same function. Everyone watched and listened as he issued quick orders, all the troopers fanning out across the ground while he walked slowly towards the crater, holding some sort of scanner out in front of him.

_"Confirmed no radioactivity detected, no toxins, and no explosive traces, even at close range,"_ he said calmly although long contact with the man let her pick up the traces of trepidation in his voice despite his control. _"Significant heat radiating from the site but I can approach the edge for a few minutes before my cooling system is overwhelmed."_

"Be careful," Emily said into her mic.

_"I was planning on it,"_ he replied dryly, almost making her smile a little. When the man was actually doing his job he was very good at it, so it was a pity he tended to go off on tangents so easily, especially when something annoyed him or he tripped over his own ego.

The view moved closer, until he was standing at the lip of the massive depression in the ground. In the light from the APC behind him his shadow stretched out across it in an enormous distorted silhouette, the center of the crater completely dark aside from the last traces of writhing green energy far below. It looked like an inverted aurora more than anything else.

_"I can't pick up anything to explain the glow," _he said after a few seconds. _"It's nothing like normal ionization, or excitation of the air by hard radiation. The color is wrong for air at this pressure aside from anything else."_

"Is is dangerous?"

_"Unknown, but I would suggest not except possibly by direct contact, which would be lethal to arrange in any case due to the high temperature of the crater," _he replied, sounding like he was thinking about something else. A moment later he knelt down and the view from his helmet tipped to show the inside of the crater at close range. An armored hand came into sight as he prodded the glistening surface with one finger. _"Slick. Like glass. Or more accurately, very similar to trinitite, the material formed in a surface nuclear detonation. The temperature required to melt ordinary sand and brick into this sort of substance is very significant, at least three thousand degrees." He pulled out his scanner again and held it over the edge for a few seconds. "It's close to six inches thick at the rim. To do this in a matter of a second or so… Director, it would take the energy release of a reasonably large fusion explosion to produce this result, but there's almost no blast damage in the surrounding buildings, and remarkably little thermal damage."_

He stood and panned the camera around, stopping on a couple of the nearby structures on the other side of the street. All the windows facing them were broken, although Emily thought somewhat cynically this wasn't necessarily due to the blast itself considering where Winslow was. Every building was some form of industrial one, most of them clearly unused. Smoke was coming out of a few windows, and the fronts of every one of them was blackened and scorched, while there was quite a lot of rubble on the street which appeared to have been knocked loose from them in the blast. Even so, the damage was oddly light, whatever had erased the school from existence apparently having been carefully targeted.

She didn't know whether that was better or worse. If nothing else, it showed appallingly good control of whatever weapon or Parahuman ability had done this. And if it _was_ a Parahuman ability, it absolutely terrified her. It made the sort of thing Purity, or even Legend himself, could do look somewhat anemic.

It wouldn't have surprised her to know that even Eidolon couldn't have done it. And that was the worst thought of all.

Briefly considering, then dismissing with a snort, the idea that Behemoth might have snuck up on Brockton Bay then vanished again, she shook her head. No, it seemed unlikely that an Endbringer was doing what was basically for them a practical joke. This was probably the result of a Tinker of some form, quite likely a new Trigger, which was just horrifying. If this was what they _started_ with, what would they do with time to plan?

And if it was an established one, why had she never heard of a nuclear Tinker before?

"Still no result on any search of similar events anywhere?" she asked, turning her head to where Renick and a couple of PRT researchers were trawling through classified files.

"No. Nothing matching this or anything like it," her immediate subordinate replied with a shake of his head. "Not even in the CUI as far as our information shows."

_"Armsmaster?" _One of the troopers called for the Tinker's attention, causing him to stand up and turn.

_"Yes, what do you have?"_ he replied as he walked over. His camera view followed the pointing finger of the other man to the ground.

_"Footprints. Two sets, one from that direction, one from what looks like a car based on the tire tracks in the debris here,"_ the trooper said. Emily and the others studied the images as Armsmaster bent slightly. The first set of prints looked like they were from some sort of heavy boot, in a military style, if she was any judge, while the others were about the same size but less obvious and apparently from a work boot. The tire tracks looked like standard car or light truck ones. They were nicely visible due to the mud on the ground caused by the melted snow surrounding the crater.

_"Depth of the prints and distance between them indicates the second set are from an individual approximately six foot three to six foot five inches tall, one hundred and eighty to two hundred and thirty pounds in weight," _Armsmaster said after a short pause, presumably having consulted his own computers. _"The first set are much deeper, suggesting the person who made them is considerably heavier."_

"How heavy?" Emily asked into her mic.

_"Estimated at between four hundred and fifty to five hundred and fifty pounds."_ Armsmaster's voice was grim.

"Which is unlikely unless it's a Brute carrying something heavy, or someone wearing power armor," Renick stated.

_"Those are the two most likely possibilities, yes," _Armsmaster replied._ "Judging by the footprints I would suggest the second one is the higher probability. The individual in question is over six feet tall, again based on stride length. Gender unknown. Second individual is probably male looking at the tread pattern, depth, and arrangement of prints." _He looked around, everyone watching as the camera view panned. _"The first person came from the direction of the crater, stopped here, turned around, then walked this way." _

After he'd followed the prints a short distance, he stopped and turned._ "Then they went back, meeting the second individual at this point,"_ he commented, walking carefully alongside the footprints at a safe distance to avoid contaminating the evidence. _"Both people were facing each other at close range. Second individual subsequently got back into the vehicle and turned it around, before driving off towards the west, with the first one accompanying them on foot."_

He followed the tracks with the PRT squad until they petered out about a block and a half away on a larger road, the snow covering it churned into slush from all the emergency vehicles that had taken this route and erasing the evidence. _"The footprints were substantially further apart for much of the time,"_ he finally said, having looked both ways, then turned to look back down the road they'd come along. _"The individual was moving at approximately thirty miles an hour at peak speed based on that. I am unable to ascertain which direction they went after joining this road without further data. However they're certainly outside the perimeter at this point, as is whoever met them."_

"Collect all the evidence you can and we'll see what it tells us," Emily instructed him as he began moving back to the school.

_"Affirmative," _the Tinker grunted, clearly already trying to work out what was happening and had happened.

She looked over at Renick, who shrugged. "Looks like it's safe enough for now so we should probably get teams in to check all the surrounding areas for survivors or wounded," he said to her gaze. "And then probably move the perimeter inwards to surround the crater itself. No point moving it _outwards_ as whoever is responsible is long gone by now, I'd think."

Emily sighed. He was right, not that it made her any happier. Apparently they had a massively dangerous power armored Tinker running around Brockton now, one who could remove a significant amount of the scenery through unknown methods for unknown reasons. No part of that made her even _slightly_ happy.

As the people in the control room coordinated their efforts with the other city services, the background sound level gradually rose back to something approximating normality although it was still rather muted. The image of the massive crater on the screen at the far end of the room was enough to make everyone nervous.

The surveillance aircraft kept orbiting the crater for another half hour scanning for anything unusual, until eventually it had to return to base due to low fuel. The second one that had been sent out to conduct overhead scans of the docks, chasing up the possible contact the sensor operator in the first one had reported also returned empty-handed, having found nothing unusual for that area. Plenty of thermal contacts, yes, but they were easily seen to just be the standard junkies and other homeless that called the otherwise largely empty part of the city home. As the aircraft passed over, many of them looked up, then quickly went into buildings, but again that was simply the usual behavior.

About an hour and a half after the event, Renick suddenly swore under his breath, causing Emily, who had spent a while walking around observing the operations before sitting down again to rest since she was feeling the stress make her other problems even more irritating, to look over at him. He was on the other side of one of the console desks, which had a center divider on which monitors and controls for each side were arranged in front of keyboards and desks. "What is it?" she asked. It was unlike him to swear in public, so to speak.

"We're getting reports in that you need to see," he said, his voice shaking with some emotion she couldn't discern. "Just hit the internal network a few minutes ago." He typed for a moment, the screen in front of her switching to display something extraordinary.

Emily looked at it, then froze, staring in shock. After close to thirty seconds, she grabbed the mouse and began quickly paging through the various documents that were being updated on the PRT high security server even as she watched. "Holy mother of god," she muttered under her breath in disbelief. "Ellisburg is..."

"Gone." Renick met her eyes over the partition. "Utterly. Everything inside the walls is simply… gone."

She didn't know whether she should be screaming in joy at the sudden end to the source of all her nightmares for years, or whimpering in terror about wondering what could have done that and how. She settled for reading the report in depth. When she got to the images accompanying it, she froze again.

"It looks like..."

Again, she found herself just trailing off in shock.

Renick nodded grimly. "It looks like _that_," he said, pointing at the large screen on which the former site of Winslow High School was still displayed. "Only much, much larger."

"Oh, fuck me dead," Emily moaned. "We have whatever did for Ellisburg _running around my city?!_" Her voice rose as she half stood.

"And Eagleton," Renick said. "And Moord Nag. And, if this latest report is correct, the Three Blasphemies. And about half a dozen other possible A and S class threats all over the planet." His voice was dark and foreboding, as if he couldn't really believe his own eyes.

She dropped heavily into her seat and just stared at the screen. More reports were coming in steadily, all of them showing very localized and very complete destruction via means no one seemed to be able to determine, from widely separated locations almost _everywhere_. Some of the events seemed to have lasted mere minutes, others could have been over an hour long based on seismic data, but in every case wherever what was doing this had been, nothing living was left. The destruction varied from complete glassing of the area down to individual buildings being apparently torn to pieces by hand, but the end result was pretty much identical each time.

The removal of the threat, usually leaving nothing but ash.

And one of the most worrying parts of the whole thing was that these events had all happened sequentially, but the locations were jumping around all over the place. That implied either more than one source of the damage, which was terrifying, or a single source that could teleport and had global range, which was almost worse.

And now it was here. Somewhere.

Then had taken out a _high school?_ That didn't make any kind of sense she could work out…

The conversation with the Hebert man came back to her and she stopped dead for a moment. Surely that couldn't _actually_ be related to all this?

Emily Piggot shivered, recalling the eyes of the man who had stared her down, and done the same to Armsmaster, without showing the slightest hint of fear but instead a sort of cold rage that genuinely worried her.

"Got some more data from Ellisburg, Emily," Renick said. She shook her head and focused on the screen. An image came up of someone or something wearing some sort of power armor unlike anything she'd ever seen before, dark non-reflective purple in color, with a few glowing lights in places on the helmet. The figure was holding a massive weapon in the process of being fired, the glowing blue beam of what looked like plasma caught in mid-shot. The next frame showed the result, which was a large number of Nilbog's creations being totally evaporated by the blast.

A final image showed the armored person turning to stare directly at the camera, weapon raised and a deep blue glow visible inside the barrel, which was enormous. "That's the point the monitoring teams evacuated," Renick commented, obviously looking at the same thing. "Everyone ran for it. Whoever that is, and whatever weapon they used, it completely destroyed Ellisburg itself and the fringe effects wrecked the containment wall, the guard and monitor posts, all the equipment, everything. Completely ruined by the heat and some sort of massive EMP. This data was being copied to the remote secondary site which is the only reason we have it but everything else was lost."

"Is it only one of them, or a whole team?" Emily asked somewhat faintly, still staring at that picture of the personification of destruction about to fire.

"There's limited data available, since most of the events caused so much damage no surveillance gear survived, or they were in locations remote enough that it wasn't there to start with," he replied. "But we've got this photo as well, it was caught by a security camera in that town in Bavaria I can't pronounce the name of. Again, it was a remote recording one, the security company was about two hundred miles away."

She studied the somewhat blurry image that came up, then compared it to the much sharper ones from Ellisburg next to it. "Looks the same, but it's a different weapon. So either it's one person with an impressive loadout or some Tinker is supplying identical power armor to someone."

"Yeah, that's what it looks like to me. I'm inclined to think it's the same person, myself."

Emily looked at him, then back at the monitor. "That doesn't actually make it less worrying," she said acidly, causing him to shrug.

"Sorry."

Turning to look at the large image of the crater where the school used to be, then at the live-updating map on another one which was showing the ongoing situation out in the city, she shook her head. "God. This is going to get complicated, I can feel it." She returned her attention to her second. "Any word from higher up yet?"

"No. As far as I can tell central command is running around like headless chickens at the moment. It's mostly regional bureaus like us that are doing actual work, which is why it took so long to get these reports. I have no idea what Washington are doing, but it's not helping," he replied with a sour look. "No word from the Chief Director at all, or anyone in her branch. The Protectorate in New York isn't answering, all we get is an automatic response saying they're dealing with a number of problems. We're pretty much on our own at the moment although we could call in help from a few of the local branches if we need it, I suppose. Boston could get us some backup pretty fast."

"Alert them, but hold off on calling them in just yet," she said after some thought, and considerable irritation at how inept some aspects of her organization tended to be when the shit hit the fan. They'd drop everything for an Endbringer attack but anything less than that tended to produce a far more unhelpful response. At times she darkly thought that there was some grand conspiracy to hang local branches out to dry on a sink or swim basis. It wasn't helpful."

"All right." He issued a couple of quiet commands to some of the other people while she stood and inspected the map, thinking hard. "So what next?"

"We try to find this person or persons, and very politely ask them to fuck off if they wouldn't mind," she finally said. "We don't need the sort of trouble they're likely to bring if they stick around. Not in _this_ city."

He looked at her, his eyebrows up. "You think that will actually _work?_"

"It's worth a shot." She shook her head. "Probably not, but I'd prefer to avoid any combat with someone who can do _that_ and is willing to." Waving a hand at the crater image, she indicated the scope of the problem. "It's a bit more than we're equipped to handle."

"Yeah, I see your point," he admitted uncomfortably. "And if we can't find them? Or worse, if we _do_ find them and they want a fight?"

Emily sighed faintly. "I have no idea at the moment. I just want to make sure it's not us that starts anything, at least until we have a better handle on the situation."

"We'd better make sure Armsmaster isn't the contact with this new one, then," Renick said with a smirk.

She glared at him. "Yes, thank you, that had already crossed my mind. Make _sure_ he's kept well out of the way as and when we locate whoever's involved."

"He won't thank you for that."

"Tough. He'll have to live with it. Get Miss Militia to… No." She stopped, then thought hard. "On second thought, don't involve her either. A weapons cape is not the right one to approach someone who has all the weapons. I can see that going very strange very fast."

"She's one of the best at talking down a new Trigger we've got," he said a little doubtfully. "She's also very calm under pressure."

"True, but I just have this feeling..." She shook her head. "We'll keep her in reserve. Dauntless and Assault. If we find this person, those two are to make first contact."

He stared at her. "Assault?" he echoed somewhat incredulously. "Why _him?_"

"Because as much of a pain in the ass as he is almost all the time, he's also one of the smartest Parahumans I know, is a lot better at getting people to relax and talk to him than most, and is very good at reading a situation and knowing when to back off," she said with another sigh. "All the corny jokes aside he's one of the better choices for this. Dauntless is… dauntless. He won't escalate the situation either. Velocity doesn't have the right experience and Triumph is too young. Battery isn't someone I want involved either for a couple of reasons, but she can do backup fine. So Assault and Dauntless it is."

After a moment, he nodded. "OK. Hopefully you're right."

"We won't know until we find this person, though," she remarked. "And I hope that's before any of the assholes in the gangs do."

"You think Lung or someone might try to grab them for his gang?"

She looked at the crater image, then meaningfully at him. "I think they might _try_. I very much doubt they'd _succeed_. And one crater is already one too many..."

With a small shudder he nodded, then started moving around the room coordinating the various groups in the field. She watched for a moment, then sat again, her back and legs painfully reminding her than she wasn't in good physical shape.

"This city will be the death of me yet," she grumbled, prodding the keyboard to check on the latest reports. 

* * *

Max Anders looked at the photo on the screen of the phone one of his higher-ranked normal E88 members was holding out. "A new Tinker, hmm?" he said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, just sitting there with her helmet off having a pizza with that older guy," the man said, looking both surprised and somewhat impressed. "Like it was nothing. Mikey said she gave him the glare of death so he legged it, but he's pretty sure she's a cape. I mean, look at that armor! It's got to be Tinker tech, right?"

"I'd think that was likely, yes," Kaiser said, taking the phone and zooming in on the image. The face of the young woman was clearly visible, and she didn't look even slightly worried about being unmasked. He was curious as to why. "Interesting. I think we need to invite the young lady to consider the advantages of our organization. Clearly she's unaware of some of the more unsavory elements that might seek to take advantage of someone in her position."

He gave the phone back and turned to the other people in the room. "Brad, take Victor and Cricket and request that our new friend meets with me, will you, please?"

The cape known as Hookwolf grinned in a bloodthirsty way. "Sure. No problem. What if that other guy gets in the way."

Kaiser shrugged. "Make sure he doesn't."

"OK." Hookwolf got up from where he was lounging on a leather sofa, motioning to the other two Parahumans mentioned, and all three of them left along with the man who'd brought the phone in. Sitting down, Max picked up a glass of scotch and sipped it, wondering what had happened to cause that enormous explosion earlier which seemed to have every authority in the city running about all over the place like idiots.

He wondered if this young lady was involved. If so, it was an impressive debut.

He'd have to ask her when she visited.


	10. DOOMed IX: Running Won't Help You

Assault looked at Dauntless, who looked back, then both of them turned to Emily. The red-clad hero pointed at the monitor displaying the steadily cooling crater where Winslow had been earlier that day.

"You want us to go and _look_ for whatever did _that?_ Then try to talk them into going somewhere else?" His voice sounded somewhat strained.

She nodded, smiling a little. It was rare to see the normally annoyingly irrepressible man put off balance like this.

"Yes."

"_Why?_"

"Because I don't want it happening _again_," she said in a growl, leaning forward a little and watching as he recoiled slightly. "You _know_ that Armsmaster would almost certainly put his foot in it _somehow_, and this is a far too volatile situation to allow his normal approach to be used. He means well, but..." She spread her hands.

With a deep sigh, Assault finally bowed his head. "Yeah. Damn it."

"What about Miss Militia?" Dauntless asked, also with a certain amount of trepidation apparent. He kept looking at the monitor and wincing.

"I have my reasons for wanting her kept out of this as well for the time being," Emily replied. "Call it a hunch backed by bitter experience. As crazy as it seems even to me, you two are probably the best chance we have of sorting this out reasonably peacefully."

"And if we can't find whoever or whatever was behind all this? Or worse, we _do_ manage to find them, but they don't want to leave?" Assault looked worried.

She shook her head. "We'll deal with that when it happens. Right now, I'm trying to avoid something horrific happening to this city. We got lucky with Winslow, as far as we can tell at this point no one actually got killed, which is nothing short of a miracle, but if, for example, Lung decided to make a move on a new Tinker… One who can do that?" She waved behind herself without looking. "Or Ellisburg, or any of the other places. I do _not_ want to have a cape fight between a rage dragon and something that makes Behemoth look tame, trust me."

Both men exchanged another glance, then peered over her head at the monitor again. She noticed that they both shuddered slightly. "No, I think I can agree with that," Assault replied rather faintly.

"Have you told Armsmaster and Miss Militia yet?" Dauntless asked.

She shook her head. "Armsmaster is still tied up with the investigation at the Winslow site, while Miss Militia is on the Rig coordinating with the BBPD. I'll contact both of them shortly. Right now I want you two to get out there and see if you can find any signs of the responsible party. We've got people looking already, with strict orders to stay well out of the situation and wait for you if they find the perpetrator." She glared at them both. "Do _not_ fuck this up."

"Hey, look on the bright side," Assault said, definitely trying to cheer himself up as much as anyone else. "If we _do_ fuck it up, we'll probably never know."

Dauntless turned his head very slowly to fix his companion with a hard look, while Assault put his hand on his face and shook his head. "God, I wish I hadn't said that," he mumbled. Emily sighed.

"Thank you _very_ much, Assault," she said with irritation. "Get out of here, find this mad Tinker or whoever it is, and persuade them to become someone else's problem for now, will you?"

"Hey, they're going to be owed a hell of a lot of money for taking out half the world's S class problems, right?" the man said, half-turning away towards the door then turning back as the thought struck him.

"Probably, yes. The bounties on some of those threats were enormous, not that anyone thought it was possible to collect," she allowed slightly suspiciously. "And Ellisburg didn't even have a price, as it was obviously never going to happen."

"Maybe we could point them at the S9 or something," he grinned. "If they're profit-orientated, I mean. That would keep them out of our hair."

She folded her arms and looked steadily at him. "And when we run out of S and A class problems, what then?" she asked acidly.

He shrugged. "They freeze to death in the winter?"

Emily sighed again. "Get out there and try not to get killed, you idiot," she said, pointing at the door. He saluted her with one finger, then turned and headed in that direction, Dauntless giving her an apologetic glance then hurrying after his colleague. She watched them disappear, hoping that she was right in her choice of personnel, and _really_ hoping that they got to the horrifically destructive unknown party before some gang idiot did.

She also wondered why the hell none of the upper level PRT or Protectorate people were making inquiries yet. It made her nervous. The longer the delay, the more annoying the interference was when it finally turned up, in her experience... 

* * *

Hookwolf watched as one of the E88 unpowered people he'd taken with him came back around the corner. "She's still there with that other guy," their scout reported breathlessly, as he stopped in front of the group of a couple of dozen people plus the three capes. "Looks like they're just finishing, the guy was looking for his wallet or something. I don't think they saw me."

"Good." Brad glanced at his companions, receiving a nod from Cricket and a shrug from Victor. The normal gang members were looking slightly apprehensive, but he wasn't sure how much of that was from thinking about going up against a new Parahuman or being next to three of their own. Nor did he care. "I think we should go introduce ourselves and pass on Kaiser's… request." His teeth showed through his mask as he grinned.

Several of the others chuckled, a couple making a show of checking their weapons, which ranged from brass knuckles through pump-action shotguns to an AK-47. "Victor, you stay back and keep watch like normal, OK?"

"Yeah," the much smaller man nodded. He patted the large rifle he had over his shoulder. "Just let me know if you need backup." The man looked around, then pointed. "I'll be up there."

Brad followed his finger and approved of his companion's choice. The old office building was one that had been abandoned for close to four years, since the financial company that had owned it went bust and got bought out by another one from New York. No one wanted a fifteen story office building in Brockton Bay so the place had remained empty except for the occasional squatter ever since, and even they didn't tend to stick around because the power was off and none of the elevators worked, which combined with a place that wasn't really suited for living in, made them seek other locations. It was easy enough to get into though due to several badly patched large holes at ground level caused by a fight between the ABB, himself, and Glory Girl a couple of years ago.

He still thought it was funny that Glory Girl had done most of the damage.

He watched as Victor headed down the block, vanishing into the building a minute later having kicked a couple of planks out of the way in the process. They waited until his phone beeped, a text message from the other man saying he was in place. Secure in the knowledge that they'd both get warning of any Protectorate interference in the upcoming chat, and have backup in the form of a high velocity sniper bullet if anyone got uppity, not that Brad thought he really needed it, he turned to the others.

"Come on. No one starts anything without my say-so, got it?"

He shoved his way to the front of the group and rounded the corner, walking down the street to the pizza place through the slushy snow while sirens sounded a couple of miles away in the vicinity of Winslow. Whatever had happened there was useful in his opinion as it took the attention of the PRT and the cops and left his own people free to operate without hindrance. He didn't know, or particularly care, what _had_ happened to the place.

From what he'd heard it was a shit school anyway so it was no loss even if one of the subhuman scum who infested the place had burned it down or something.

At the other end of the street, about three hundred or so yards away, he could see the pizza place which was a beacon of light in an otherwise mostly dark area, the weather having been bad enough to make most of the other shops and restaurants close early tonight. Aside from that and a dozen or so streetlights, the entire area was dark and oddly still, without any vehicles or any signs of other people. That last part could well be down to any passers-by spotting his group and clearing out, which was the usual result. He assumed there could be watchers in the buildings, but didn't bother looking. While he could almost feel the eyes on them he knew no one would have the balls to interfere.

Halfway to the pizza place, he saw the Tinker girl, now wearing her helmet again, step out of the front door, the older guy following her while looking back over his shoulder and apparently saying something to someone inside, probably the staff. He waved then let the door close, before heading with the girl in the other direction. Hookwolf was _sure_ she'd glanced in their direction but after that she apparently entirely ignored them, which was… unusual.

The old guy didn't even seem to notice, so he was probably just unobservant. Not to mention they were walking in near darkness except for the streetlights, of course.

The E88 group kept moving, steadily closing the distance, since their target didn't seem to be in any hurry. Brad kept his eyes fixed on the power-armored young woman as she was the potentially dangerous one although he was sure that as a new Trigger she wasn't going to be particularly hard to cow. Yeah, the dark purple armor was impressive, very professional and giving off the air of something that even Armsmaster, that shiny bastard, would nod approvingly at, but how dangerous could a kid like that be? Especially out on the street like this, and apparently completely ignorant of the simplest aspects of cape life.

Wearing a mask was Caping 101 as far as most Parahumans were concerned, even an idiot knew that, unless you were New Wave, and they were just stupid. If it wasn't for their power and Panacea, they'd have been wiped out or acquired by a gang years back in his opinion. But this girl either didn't know about the dangers of letting people see your face, or thought she was above that.

He was going to have to show her where she was going wrong in that respect.

Their quarry stopped next to a somewhat beaten-up old car parked a way down the street from the pizza place, the vehicle one of those older model ones that seemed to keep working forever even though they sounded like they were about to fall apart at any second. The old guy unlocked it, while talking to the girl in a casual fashion as if having someone in power armor standing there was an entirely normal thing to do. In Brockton Bay it wasn't as unusual as it would have been in most places, Brad thought with slight amusement, but even so it wasn't exactly common.

When his group was only about fifty feet away, both the other people still apparently not noticing them and just standing there talking quietly, Brad held up a fist. All his people stopped, Cricket moving to the side to have a clear shot at their target if anything happened, the rest of the normals spreading out with weapons ready but not aimed. "Hey," he said after a few seconds, somewhat incensed that the Tinker and her guy were _still_ ignoring them.

Both looked around at his call, then exchanged a glance.

"Kaiser wants a word with you, girl," he added, making his voice as commanding as possible and conveying by his stance and tone that what Kaiser wanted, Kaiser got.

"No thanks, I'm busy right now," the girl replied, her own voice sounding confident but unimpressed. She turned back to the old guy, who smiled a little and opened the driver's door.

Brad stared, then looked at Cricket, who met his eyes with a puzzled and questioning look of her own. This was _not_ the usual response to a heavily armed group of E88 people, complete with two capes, in his experience. Especially when one of the capes was _him_.

"You know who I am?" he demanded roughly, taking a step forward and letting his power start to change him, blades beginning to push out of his skin. He wasn't particularly pleased she was treating this so lightly.

He got the impression that the girl sighed slightly as she turned to face him again. "Yeah, you're that Nazi idiot… um, I want to say… Knifedog? No, that's not it. Stabbypuppy? Nope, that's ridiculous. I know it's something edgy and dog related… Swordmutt?" Brad gaped incredulously as she tilted her head a little, apparently thinking. "Hang on, it's been a while, I'll remember."

As he was about to say something, his temper rising, she snapped her armored fingers in triumph. "Aha! I know. _Hookwolf!_ That's it!" Her demeanor changed from almost playful to completely focused in an instant, making him go from confused to wary. "Hookwolf the _Nazi_. Go away, Hookwolf the Nazi, or I'll do something you'll regret. I've had a _very_ long day and _I am not in the mood to play._ I just want to go home with my dad and catch up on what happened while I was away." She turned dismissively and looked at the man, who was watching with apparent amusement and what looked like pride.

Her dad, hmm? That was careless of her. Through his growing anger at her insolence and attitude, he made a motion to a couple of his guys to go around the car and grab the guy for insurance. Jeff and Lonny headed towards the tall skinny man, the former slinging his shotgun over his shoulder and cracking his knuckles.

"You really sure you want to start something, boys?" the man asked as they neared. He didn't sound particularly worried, which Brad put down to bravado. It was surprising how many people fancied themselves as fighters _right_ up until they got a fist in the gut. That usually changed their minds right quick, and that guy was at least forty and looked like an accountant or something anyway.

The girl merely watched as the two enforcers approached her father, even stepping back to give them room. Brad frowned a little, the slightest inkling that something odd was going on prodding the back of his mind.

Jeff grinned unpleasantly, laughed a little, and replied, "Yeah, I'm sure," he said as he reached out for the man's arm to grab it and spin him around with it in a submission hold.

"OK," the man said, shrugging.

Everyone froze at the wet crack as Jeff's arm snapped like a twig at the elbow, even Jeff himself, until he screamed like a little girl when the pain hit. Brad stared as somehow the man ended up holding Jeff's shotgun, which he struck out with in a sharp motion. The screaming abruptly stopped. Before Lonny could react the butt of the gun slammed into his stomach, then up into his chin so hard he almost flipped backwards, totally unconscious and possibly dead before he'd finished falling.

The older guy who suddenly seemed a _lot_ more dangerous spun the weapon in his hand, cocking it in the process, to cover Brad and his remaining people, who were staring in shock.

"Nice one, Dad," the girl said admiringly.

"Out of practice, Taylor," the guy replied, not looking away from the others. "I think they're still alive."

"Easily fixed," she shrugged. Turning back to Brad, she moved slightly in front of her father, although she was careful not to block his line of fire. "OK, fun's fun, but I really don't have time for this shit. Fuck off, take your idiots with you, and you can live. **Annoy me any more and I will fucking end you,** **your entire gang,** **and anyone who ever even smiled at you,** **you hear me,** **_Hookwolf the Nazi?_"** She leaned forward a little, adding, **"I don't _like_ Nazis."**

Her voice had become something horrific as she spoke, making Brad get a chill down his back in a way that he'd never experienced before in his entire life. Most of the others with him almost unconsciously grouped closer together, exchanging glances that were mostly uncertain and worried, if not actually scared.

There was a moment of near-stillness as everyone just stood there. A second later Brad growled, "You're going to pay for that," at the girl's father, who didn't react at all. He let his transformation go further, bulking up with a metal on metal sound as more blades appeared. "Kaiser said bring you to him, that's what I'm going to do, girl."

**"You're really beginning to piss me off, Stabbypuppy,"** the girl replied with a snarl of her own, almost visibly radiating rage in a more than slightly disconcerting way as she stared them down. **"Last chance to walk away, and that's only because I'm full of pizza and in a good mood."**

"Get that guy," Brad ordered Cricket, not taking his eyes off the armored figure of the Tinker girl, who he suddenly had a very strong feeling was a hell of a lot more dangerous than he'd first thought. He was beginning to wonder if he'd made a mistake approaching her like this. And if he was actually seeing the dull red glow out of the corner of his eyes that he thought he was. Still, it was done and the Empire couldn't back down. "Leave this one to me."

His companion didn't bother acknowledging his order with even a glance, she merely shot forward with both kamas raised, moving much faster than most people could track never mind avoid. Brad winced at the sensation of her echolocation, even though she was facing the other way. It would be much worse for the other two of course.

The sound of the shotgun firing drowned out her ultrasonic scream with a flat boom. Moments later Cricket slid bonelessly to a halt at the girl's feet. Brad took a moment to realize that there had been at least three shots so close together they merged into one, the man having worked the action of the gun faster than he'd ever seen done before. The first shot had missed, the other two hadn't, and at near enough point blank range the damage was horrific.

"**Cricket!**" he yelled, furious and shocked in equal quantities. His remaining men were, when he looked around at the sounds of motion, backing away like cowards. Wanting to kill the Tinker _and_ her dad, the only thing holding him back was a combination of Kaiser's order to bring her to him and a certain wariness that _both_ of them were clearly more than he'd thought they were. There was no way someone should have been able to take Cricket out that easily, but the guy had made it look trivial. He was just standing there with the shotgun raised and ready. The girl _still_ didn't give off any impression of being worried, although she _was_ emanating an aura of anger that was more than a little intimidating.

As he was trying to decide whether or not to attack, the girl suddenly snapped out a hand so fast he didn't even see it move, putting it in front of her father. Moments later there was a distant gunshot. She opened her hand and held up a fucking _bullet_, making Brad stare in horrified fascination.

She'd actually _caught a fifty caliber sniper bullet in flight!_

_No one_ was that fast.

Turning her head to look up at the building several hundred yards away where Victor was, it obviously being him who'd fired the shot, she dropped the expended round to the ground, then did _something_ that resulted in her holding one of the biggest and most lethal-looking rocket launchers that Brad had ever seen. Without hesitation she raised it and fired twice, the rockets roaring from the launcher over their heads so quickly they barely had time to duck. When Brad followed the trajectory of the shots he was in time to see the entire upper floor of the defunct office building erupt in a strangely colored fireball and disintegrate into fragments that rained down over the entire area, the top twenty feet or so of the place completely gone. Victor was _very _obviously no longer among the living.

He looked back, to find a different weapon pointed directly at him, a violent blue glow inside the enormous muzzle.

"Oh, _fuck_," he managed to say. Then the world turned into _pain_. 

* * *

"So how are we supposed to go about finding someone who can erase an entire city and salt the earth?" Dauntless glanced at Assault, who was sitting on the other side of the PRT transport vehicle as it headed for a site off to the side of the Winslow event, near where Armsmaster had lost the tracks of the car and whoever had been accompanying it. That suggested to him that this person, whoever it was, had local backup. He wasn't, if he was honest with himself, particularly looking forward to meeting this person. They appeared to be dangerous to a level that made the word '_dangerous_' entirely inadequate.

He only hoped they were willing to listen rather than open fire on sight…

His colleague was looking pensively at the floor, clearly thinking. At his words, Assault looked up, then shrugged a little. "Dunno yet. If they've gone to ground we might not find them at all. Or they might have left the Bay entirely already."

"That would be my ideal situation," Dauntless half-grinned.

"Yeah. Can't say I'd have any problems with it either," the other man agreed with a sigh. "Fuck. A teleporting, S-class eliminating, power armored walking weapon of mass destruction decided to come _here?_" He met Dauntless's eyes. "And then vaporizes an empty _school?_ What the _hell_ is that about?"

"I've heard that Winslow is pretty bad..." Dauntless said weakly.

"There's bad, then _there's in the same category as Ellisburg!_" Assault spread his hands, rocking slightly in his seat as the transport vehicle went around a corner. "I'm pretty sure that a bunch of high school kids aren't _quite_ on the level of lethal man-eating biotinkered nightmares."

"Have you _met_ high school kids?" Dauntless asked, making the other man snicker.

"Well, yeah, point to you. But it's still weird. What the fuck did Winslow have in common with Ellisburg, Eagleton, the Three Blasphemies, Moord Nag, and all the others?"

"It was definitely on someone's shit list, that's for sure," he sighed. "I still can't believe _anyone_ could do _that_ much damage and not destroy the entire city. I mean, a crater that big would need a nuke to create. A pretty big one. There are smaller holes in Nevada. And aside from a few small fires, the _only_ thing that got erased was the school itself. That's… impressive. For _all_ the wrong reasons."

"Also a good point. On the other hand, powers are indeed bullshit as our clock themed practical joker keeps saying."

"There's bullshit, then there's _that..._"

They looked at each other for a moment before simultaneously shivering.

"I've got a bad feeling about this whole situation," Assault muttered.

"Join the club," Dauntless replied, shaking his head, then checking his arc-lance somewhat nervously. It was about the tenth time he'd done that in the last six minutes.

One of the two PRT troopers in the front, the one who wasn't actually driving, leaned around to look back through the doorway between the cab and the rear of the vehicle. "Sir, we're getting a report that someone has posted on PHO that Hookwolf, along with Cricket, Victor, and at least twenty normal gang members, has been seen hanging around on the corner of Bleak Avenue and Ocean Drive."

Assault and Dauntless exchanged another glance, rather more worried than before. "Shit. That's only about a mile from the Winslow site and in the direction that the tracks were heading if they turned right where Armsmaster lost them..."

"Balls. If that crazy Nazi blender gets involved… He's not exactly known for his diplomatic skills." Assault groaned, rubbing his eyes. "Oh, hell. How would the E88 have found out?"

"It's not like everyone in the entire _state_ didn't see and hear that explosion," Dauntless pointed out. "Maybe one of their people spotted someone in power armor wandering around and passed it up the chain."

"Yeah, probably. They've got more people on the street than we do… Fuck it. And Kaiser, the asshole, probably just thought, '_Oh, a new Tinker, better grab them quick_,' without stopping to think for a fucking _second_ that maybe, just _maybe_, this person _might _have something to do with whoever _nearly nuked Brockton!_" Assault's voice got more and more acidic as he spoke, a significant change from his normal somewhat ebullient air. His colleague didn't blame him, this had the makings of a real disaster waiting to happen.

"Sergeant, head for that location, but keep to the back roads," the other man then added in the direction of the cab.

"Got it," the driver called back, the vehicle taking a left turn and speeding up.

"Any other information come in yet?" Dauntless asked the Daniels, the trooper who'd told them about the sighting and who was still peering back at them.

"No, we don't have anyone else in that exact area at the moment," Daniels replied, shaking his head. "Our people were going in the other direction, towards the center of the city, not out to the suburbs."

"Well, we'd better keep everyone away for now," Assault put in. "Tell the squads on the ground to keep at least a quarter mile away from that location unless we call them in, but have them stand by."

"Sir," the man nodded, turning back to the cab. They could hear his voice speaking quietly into the comms system a moment later.

Assault looked at Dauntless, then tapped his own comms earpiece, as did the other man. A moment later, Director Piggot answered. "_Report_," she said, sounding tired but alert.

"We're chasing up a lead that Hookwolf and a group of E88 gangers along with two other capes were seen about a mile from Winslow, in one of the possible directions our unknown friend could have gone," the red-clad man said.

There was a long pause during which they both glanced at each other, then a burst of almost inaudible swearing in which the words, "_...should have been strangled at birth..._" could just be heard. When the director finished muttering to herself, she said more loudly and obviously with deliberately forced calmness, "_Do anything you need to do to stop that lunatic from making a bad situation worse_."

An enormous explosion echoed over the area, causing the transport to slam to a halt. All the occupants looked out the windshield in time to see a fairly tall building about half a mile away directly in front of them erupt in oddly orange-purple-white flames and abruptly become a couple of stories shorter in an impressively large shower of burning debris that flew up and out a remarkably long distance.

After several silent seconds of stunned shock, Assault said with remarkable restraint, "Yeah, we _might_ be a little too late for that..." 

* * *

Amy touched Dean's arm again, then shook her head. She'd repaired the damage caused by what seemed to be a stress-induced cardiac event, very rare in a teenager, but he was still deeply unconscious even though his brain was working overtime. And his corona activity was going _nuts_. She looked up at her very worried sister, then her adoptive parents, who'd come home to find the Stansfield boy laid out on the couch totally unresponsive. "He's really out of it. I _could_ get him conscious but I'm not sure it's a good idea. Whatever is wrong is still going on and it might cause brain damage the next time, not a heart problem."

"It's got to be some sort of attack," Vicky said, her hand on her boyfriend's head. The blonde girl was clearly trying to hold herself together but was just as clearly terrified for him. "A Master or something."

"I can't see anything that would explain it," Amy said as she stood up and stared at the young man. "None of the normal signs are there for some sort of powers-related problem, at least not ones I'm familiar with. It looks..." She paused, thinking, then nodded. "It looks almost like something basically scared him so much he just… fell over."

Carol and Mark exchanged a look, then examined the boy, before looking at Vicky. "What were you doing?" Carol asked slightly suspiciously.

"We were just sitting there watching TV, Mom!" the blonde replied with a glare. "Then he screamed and collapsed. It wasn't anything _I_ did."

"Hmm..." The older woman studied her daughter closely for a moment, then shook her head. "Well, we can't do much more for him. Something bizarre is going on at the moment, with that enormous explosion earlier, and most of the BBPD and PRT running around like mad people. No one seems to know _what_ though. And now this..." She looked at Dean again. "I can't see how this can be a coincidence."

"We'd better call the PRT and talk to the director, I suppose," Mark added with a shrug. "The boy's a Ward after all."

Vicky and Amy exchanged a look.

"Please, I'm depressed, not stupid," Mark chuckled. "I've known he was Gallant for quite a while now. Not my business but it wasn't hard to work out."

"Oh." Vicky sighed, but almost looked impressed. "He won't be happy about that."

"He can be as unhappy as he wants when we find out what's doing this to him," Amy said acerbically. "Call Director Piggot."

Carol nodded and pulled out her phone, not even bothering to glare at Amy's tone. She dialed, then waited. "This is Brandish of New Wave. Director Piggot, please," she said when it was answered. There was a pause, then she scowled. "Tell her we have the Stansfield boy at our house, he's had some sort of medical problem that Panacea says might be the result of a Parahuman attack and he's currently unconscious."

Everyone waited as she listened. "Yes. _That_ Stansfield boy. Thank you."

Clearly whoever had answered was transferring her call. A few seconds passed until she said, "Hello, Director Piggot. Sorry to bother you, I know something big is going on, but we've got… Yes, he collapsed here at our house about..." She glanced at Amy, who held up three fingers. "...three hours ago. Panacea says he had some sort of heart problem out of nowhere, which she's fixed, but there's an ongoing issue that might be Parahuman in nature. She's unwilling to interfere without backup. Yes. Yes, we can bring him to you. You're that short handed? I see. All right, we'll be there shortly, with Panacea and Glory Girl too." Disconnecting she dropped the phone into her pocket, then shook her head. "That woman..."

Turning to the two girls, she said, "Get your costumes on. We'll take the car, I don't want anyone flying tonight until we have a better idea of what the hell is actually happening."

Amy merely nodded, while Vicky looked at her boyfriend, stroked his hair, then followed the other girl out of the room. A few minutes later all of them had piled into Carol's SUV, Vicky carefully putting Dean in the back seat, then sitting next to him, with Amy on the other side keeping an eye on his vitals as they drove towards the PRT building. 

* * *

"Jesus, what the hell is _that!?_" Ethan shouted over a noise like a slow running but very big engine with no muffler on it that suddenly came out of nowhere from just ahead of them, accompanied by rapid flashes of brilliant yellow-white light. Moments later both he and Dauntless stopped in their tracks as a glinting mass of metal blades shot past the end of the street they'd been cautiously approaching the area where the building had inexplicably exploded a couple of minutes ago. The transport vehicle was parked down an alley out of sight with two very nervous and heavily armed troopers guarding it, under strict orders to _stay away_ unless their aid was requested.

Now, they watched in horror as _Hookwolf_ flew, obviously not under his own power, past the end of the road, apparently propelled by something, or multiple somethings, hitting him with enormous force over and over again. Blade fragments flew everywhere, many of them looking melted and scorched. The sound of whatever weapon it was got steadily louder until the owner of it came into sight, striding forward at a steady rapid walk. The noise rose to a deafening level as the matte purple power-armored figure, who was holding a fucking _enormous_ rotary cannon that was so large most people probably couldn't even pick the thing up never mind survive firing it, passed the end of the road and vanished again. A constant stream of muzzle flashes lit the entire area and the sound of the thing firing was like an angry god roaring in rage.

Almost overwhelmed by the sound and sight, both men had put their hands over their ears until the noise diminished again, then they exchanged horrified looks. Apparently the Nazi cape had not only found but _severely_ annoyed the person they were also looking for…

"Is it me, or did that person look angrier than anything you've ever seen?" Dauntless said loudly, still barely audible over the sound of the huge gun firing.

Ethan merely nodded, almost awestruck. Then, with another look at his companion, he carefully and somewhat unwillingly edged forward, Dauntless following, until both of them could stick their heads around the corner and see what was going on.

In the direction the power armored lunatic with the portable anti-aircraft gun had come from there were a number of bodies lying in the road, with half a dozen more standing against the wall, their faces pressed against it and their hands behind their heads. A single figure was leaning on a battered car holding a truly enormous gun and covering the rest with it, while looking in their direction. They took that in with a glance, then looked the other way.

The armored person released the trigger just as they looked, the huge rotary weapon spinning down with a whine, possibly out of ammunition although neither wanted to swear to that. It did _something_ which made the thing disappear, then produced a smaller but still very impressive rifle-like gun which came to life with a deep hum they could hear from a hundred feet away, several tally lights coming on down the thing. Hookwolf, clearly badly injured and far past the point of being a threat to anyone, was lying in a heap of blades against a wrecked car that looked like it had been dumped there by the side of the road.

As they watched, the armored person stopped about ten feet from the Nazi cape and looked at him. **"I warned you, Knifedog,"** it, or more likely _she_, said in a voice that nearly made them piss themselves. **"I don't _like_ Nazis. I _especially_ don't like Nazis that threaten my father, or interrupt me when I just want to go home and relax."** She lifted the weapon to a firing position. **"I'd say this was fun, but to be honest it's just annoying pest control."**

There was a very loud sound and a series of brilliant blue-white flashes, then the woman in the armor turned away from the small glassy molten crater that was all that was left of Hookwolf _and_ the old car and headed back towards the other end of the street. She nodded politely to a gaping Assault and Dauntless as she passed without slowing.

Both men stared in horrified shock, looked at where one of the most dangerous capes in Brockton Bay had died, at each other, then after the armored woman, who had just joined the man who was leaning on the car apparently waiting for her. He handed her the very big gun he'd been holding, which she made vanish, then picked up a much smaller but still very lethal shotgun from inside the car and resumed covering the presumably E88 members.

"You want these guys or do I just shoot them too?" the woman called, her voice no longer _quite_ as pants-shittingly terrifying but with an underlying note that made both of them feel extremely worried. It was pretty apparent that she wasn't joking. "Once they tell me where Kaiser is I don't need them any more. I have to go have a word with that asshole."

"Oh, fuck me, this isn't good," Ethan mumbled.

"You _think?_" Dauntless hissed, his hand on his arc-lance.

After a long moment, both of them stepped out into the street and extremely cautiously headed towards someone neither one of them had any real wish to meet.

Sometimes this job absolutely _sucked._

* * *

Emily inspected the unconscious form of Gallant, who was lying on a bed in the PRT medical center, looking pale and unwell although Panacea assured her he was in no immediate danger. As much as she distrusted Parahumans in general, she had to admit the girl knew her stuff and was unlikely to be wrong. She turned to the doctor who was studying the results of a brain scan he'd just carried out with a handheld device. "Any idea?" she asked.

"No. Panacea is correct, his corona is highly active, but the activity itself doesn't match the normal pattern we've seen from Gallant before. I'm at a loss as to the cause. It _might_ be a Parahuman attack, but if it is, it's a new variant we don't have any records of."

She nodded slowly, wondering how this tied into all the chaos that had happened tonight. It seemed excessively unlikely that it wasn't connected somehow, but she had no idea how. Why Gallant? Why not any other Parahuman?

"Is it safe to wake him?" she asked.

The doctor studied his results again and thought for a moment, before giving Panacea, who was standing near the bed, a quizzical glance. The healer shrugged. "On the face of it I can't see any immediate reason not to," he finally said. "But I can't guarantee he'll be lucid, or remember what happened if he _is_. Or even know."

"Fair enough, but we don't have any other way to find out, so we might as well try it," she replied. Looking at Panacea she added, "Wake him, please."

"OK," the girl replied, putting her hand on the boy's for a few seconds.

Everyone in the room without exception was shocked when he suddenly sat bolt upright on the bed and shouted **"She has come!"** at the top of his voice in a _really_ offputting way, paused, added almost conversationally, **"She is ANGRY!"** then screamed and fainted again.

Following a _very_ long and extremely confused silence, Panacea said, "Well, _that's_ not worrying at _all._"

Giving her an unfriendly look, Emily shook her head, then tried to work out what the _fuck_ was going on.


	11. DOOMed X: You'll Just Die Tired

"Holy _fuck!_"

Lisa, Brian, Rachel, and Alec all said the exact same thing at the exact same time, in the exact same tone of total horrified disbelief.

Brian pointed at the TV in the hotel room they were all in, twenty miles from Brockton Bay. Lisa had hooked her laptop to it and they'd tried to figure out what in god's name was happening back in the city, and had just watched the single most disturbing video on PHO any of them had ever seen. "Did you _see_ that?" he demanded in appalled awe. "She took out Victor like it was _nothing_, along with half the building he was in, then basically slaughtered Hookwolf and made it look easy. He didn't stand a fucking chance."

Lisa nodded, her eyes so wide he was thinking she might need medical help later. Her pupils were expanded like she'd taken something pretty strong although he was certain she hadn't. And from their more than a little angry discussion on the way here she apparently didn't remember anything of the last three days, which was all _sorts_ of worrying.

"I think I know who **_She_** is," Alec said in a voice that was faint and horrified.

Rachel, beside him, was cuddling her dogs, all of which seemed upset, but she also nodded like her head was on a spring.

"She's got to be a Tinker, but fuck me she's the scariest Tinker I've ever even heard of," Brian added, looking at the freeze-frame that caught the woman in power armor in mid stride. Lisa had hit the space bar almost in a fugue state as the one who'd just wiped out a wildly dangerous pair of Nazi capes with ease was heading back towards the older guy who was holding a bunch of normal gangers at bay with a massive shotgun-like weapon.

Even _that _guy worried Brian a lot. The PHO poster going by the name of '_Pieman_Cheeze_' who'd uploaded the video about fifteen minutes ago had started videoing just as the E88 group accosted the armored girl and the older guy at their vehicle, so he'd caught the entire exchange. Even though it was shot from far enough away that none of the speech could be made out, what actually happened was easy to see, especially since the car had been parked directly under a streetlight.

The E88 had obviously tried to strong-arm the woman into joining them and had _seriously_ miscalculated the reaction. The older man had taken out two gang members half his age with the certain motions of someone who knew exactly how to deal major damage, and no signs whatsoever of hesitation. Then he'd blown Cricket away with a shotgun without a flicker of emotion, before the girl had apparently _literally caught a bullet in mid flight_, exploded the shooter who had to have been Victor a second later, and turned on Hookwolf with the sort of firepower you could take out a battleship with.

One shot from some sort of energy weapon had blown the fully transformed E88 Changer about eighty feet, then she'd swapped out the thing for the biggest fucking rotary cannon anyone had ever seen, never mind used handheld, and emptied hundreds of rounds of high caliber ammo into him. _Then_ she'd delivered the coup de grace with the energy gun, completely vaporizing the bastard.

Brian had never even imagined such ferocity and single-minded devotion to dealing that sort of destruction, and was wishing he could forget about it even now even though no one was actually going to miss the bastard. It was absolutely _horrifying_.

She made Lung look positively cheerful. He could almost _feel_ the rage emanating from her as she did her thing, and wasn't entirely certain that the slight shimmer that had seemed to come from her was actually heat from the gun and not a visible manifestation of an anger more suited to a furious god of destruction than a female Tinker.

He did _not_ want to meet her.

Ever.

He looked at Lisa again and noticed she was shivering, her gaze still fixed on the screen. Reaching out he prodded the space bar and resumed the video. They watched it to the end, where Assault and Dauntless walked over from somewhere off screen, looking somewhat reluctant, and began talking to both of the other people. There was a followup video, he noticed, but he left that for now. There was also a vast number of replies to the thread that was growing very fast, faster than he'd seen for most new Parahumans, and when he scrolled down through the first couple of pages he saw that many of them were expressing a sort of bloodthirsty relief that Hookwolf was finally dead.

A _lot_ of people in Brockton Bay, and many other places, had wanted the murderous Nazi dead for many years. He'd left an impressive trail of bodies behind him and no one could really work out why the PRT hadn't done something permanent about it years ago. Considering there were two separate Birdcage sentences on the guy and he was rumored to be one murder away from a kill order, the authorities really should have gone after him more enthusiastically. That they didn't was generally taken as yet more proof that they were either incompetent and/or corrupt, and possibly in the pay of the Nazis to begin with. Considering the number of villains of that level that were left to roam the countryside without any real repercussions he couldn't entirely disagree with that viewpoint. Between them, the major E88 capes had killed to his certain knowledge at least five hundred people just between them in the last decade and no one really did anything about it. Some of those people had been friends of his, so he wasn't particularly upset about seeing Hookwolf killed.

It was more that what _had_ done that absolutely terrified him…

The PHO comments, of course, seemed to run the gamut from people who were positively gleefully suggesting other targets for bloody death, those who were fantasizing about how many pieces someone like Jack Slash would end up in and how slowly, the usual suggestions of who'd come out on top between this new cape and almost every other possible hero or villain, all the way down to people insisting that she should immediately be prosecuted for the murder of a poor defenseless Nazi. He snorted with black amusement at a couple of those, since it was obvious they were from other E88 members, none of which he sympathized with in any way at all. For obvious reasons. But it was a good example of the sort of thing you got on the internet. The place tended to be full of very strange people in his experience.

And that was coming from him, a teenage super-villain.

Shaking his head, he closed the laptop and gently took it out of Lisa's unresisting hands, placing it to the side. "You OK?" he asked her. She stared at the now-blank TV screen for a good thirty seconds more before turning her head to meet his eyes, blinking a few times, then slowly fell over to the side.

He caught her and sighed. "She's gone again," he complained. Alec looked at the blonde and shrugged, although his face betrayed a slight amount of concern which for him was pretty expressive. Rachel also looked but kept holding her dogs.

"Must be faulty or something," the other boy said. "Stick her on the bed and let her sleep it off." Brian picked Lisa up and took her into the girl's room, putting her on one of the beds and covering her, before returning to the living area with a concerned backwards glance.

"What do we do now?" he wondered out loud. "I'm worried about Aisha, and dad for that matter. They're still in Brockton. With… _Her_."

"Don't want to go back," Rachel muttered, almost obsessively stroking Angelica, who was whining faintly and visibly shivering.

Brian looked at Alec and saw the same thought in his team-mate's eyes. To be honest, it was much the same feeling he had himself, but he also had family obligations. At least to his sister, and after a moment he sighed and thought that his father also deserved the same. The man wasn't actually a _bad_ person, just not a particularly good father, at least for a teenaged girl.

Their _mother _on the other hand…

He shook his head. He'd burned his bridges there and wasn't sorry about it.

Alec had commandeered the laptop while he'd taken Lisa to her bed and was now looking through the Brockton Bay section of PHO for anything else of interest. He'd apparently decided he didn't really want to look at the other video of the Tinker of Death. Brian didn't blame him, it was going to take a while before he could get that out of his mind. "Huh," the smaller boy grunted, scanning one thread with raised eyebrows. "Weird."

"What?" Brian looked up from his ruminations, glancing at Alec, then looking at the screen. Alec scrolled back a few pages.

"People are saying that there are strange things wandering around in the docks growling at them," he said, pointing at one line.

"_Demonic aliens, alien demons, or just mass hallucinations?_" Brian read out loud, before sniggering. "Yeah, let me guess who came up with _that_."

"Not difficult," Alec grinned. "That guy's a nutcase. But there are several reports of something strange going on in that area. Mostly from people who are probably shitfaced, fair enough, but..." He shrugged. "Brockton Bay, you know?"

"Unfortunately," Brian sighed. Reaching out he snagged the computer and scrolled down a few posts to read a comment from someone who claimed to be a member of the ABB and was saying he'd been chased by a big red flying ball with horns, enormous teeth, and a bad attitude. Most of the followup comments were basically laughing at him, and telling him that without photos or video he wasn't going to be believed. His response that the flying ball had eaten his phone wasn't particularly plausible…

"That place gets stranger and stranger," Brian finally grumbled, handing the laptop back to Alec, who took it and started reading another thread.

"True," Alec replied, then stopped and stared at the TV. "OK, this one's saying someone nuked a high school!?"

He met Brian's eyes, then both of them looked at Rachel, who shook her head. "Don't wanna know," she replied, settling back with all her dogs draped over her and closing her eyes.

"Fuck." Brian put his hands over his face. He really wasn't having a good time at the moment and hadn't been for the last few days.

**"SHE HAS COME!"** Lisa's voice said in a highly disturbing way, before a loud snore came back to them as they all jumped violently.

"WE KNOW!" all three of them yelled back as one.

Then they went out to find some food and think about what their next move was, leaving Lisa to her snoring and occasional shout of doom. 

* * *

Max watched the video with a sense of complete disbelief. When it finished, he raised his eyes to meet those of James '_Krieg' _Fliescher, who stared back.

"Jesus Christ," he breathed, not knowing yet whether he should be furious, appalled, or terrified. In all honesty he was pretty much all of those at the same time. "Who the _hell_ **_is she?_**"

James shook his head, taking the tablet back and putting it on the desk in front of him. "No one knows. She just turned up out of nowhere, no record of her anywhere before a few hours ago. And she's apparently not only perfectly happy to let people see her face, but also entirely unconcerned with the Rules or anything else."

Sitting back in his chair with a sensation of disbelief, Max keep looking at James. "Brad, Victor, and Melody, all dead in… minutes. Just like that."

"Yeah. Just like that. Melody took two 12 gauge hits to the chest, at practically point blank range. She probably died instantly. Victor..." James shook his head again. "That woman destroyed the top two floors at least with only a couple of rockets, and poor Victor sure wouldn't have made it. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't even find a body after that."

He looked at the tablet for a moment, then went on, "Brad, well, that first shot would probably have killed almost anyone else on the spot. The gatling cannon thing she was using would probably give Leviathan a headache. And those final shots to finish him off… It was the most brutal killing I think I've ever seen." He sighed a little. "Might even have been a mercy, I doubt even Brad would get up after god alone knows how many hundred armor piercing rounds like that. But I don't think she did it to be _merciful_."

"Making a point," Max said slowly. James nodded.

"Yeah. The point being she didn't give a shit and doesn't take prisoners. And she's perfectly content to not only tell _us_ that but the PRT too."

The pair exchanged looks in silence for a few seconds. "What do you want to do about it?" James finally asked. Max turned his head to look out the window of his penthouse office towards where three of his Parahumans had died, killed by someone who'd made it look almost trivial.

He'd seen the flash of the detonation that killed Victor at the time it happened but hadn't realized what it was. For some reason that made him feel… odd. He didn't really know why.

Who the hell was this woman? Or girl, really, the images he'd initially been shown of her without her helmet on showed someone who was probably around eighteen or nineteen he thought. Older than Rune, but not by much, yet she seemed prepared to simply eliminate anyone who got in her way with what could only be described as massive overkill.

And who was that older guy? For some reason the face looked familiar but he simply couldn't place it. He was _sure_ he'd seen it before. Leaning over the desk he slid the tablet towards him and scrolled back in the video, looking for the clearest shot he could find. Eventually he stopped on a freeze-frame of the guy literally caught in the middle of shooting Cricket, the shotgun shown with an enormous blast of flame coming out the muzzle and underlighting his face in a rather dramatic and, if Max was honest, more than a little troubling manner. There was no sign at all of any real emotion that he could see. The guy looked about as invested in killing someone as most people would be in picking up a carton of milk.

Even to Max, considering some of the things he'd done himself, or seen done, that struck him as a bit strange.

Zooming in as much as he could, he tilted the tablet this way and that while squinting at the pixelated face, trying to decided if he really had seen the bastard before. There was a little voice niggling at the back of his mind that said yes, but he simply couldn't get it to divulge a name, or even under what circumstances. It was very annoying. In the end he slid it across to James, who picked it up and looked at it with an eyebrow up. "Recognize him?"

His subordinate studied the image for a while, then shook his head slowly with a frown. "No, but I get the feeling I _should_."

"Yeah, me too, but I'm fucked if I can recall why," Max growled.

"That Tinker and this guy are obviously close somehow," James remarked, zooming out a little and studying the image again. "Judging by being in that pizza place, and how they were just wandering around in the street. Husband and wife?"

"Doubt it, he's at least twice her age, and he sort of looks a little like her," Max replied after thinking it over, while inspecting his phone on which the best shot of the girl without her helmet was displayed. "Brother and sister, maybe, or father and daughter. More likely that one."

"Maybe he's a pressure point we could use to get her to talk to us? Assuming you still _want_ her to talk to us." James dropped the tablet once more. "Personally I think we should kill both of them. They've cost us three capes, friends of ours, and at least half a dozen normals."

Max glanced at him before going back to staring out the window into the night. Far off towards the docks he could still see a huge number of flashing lights from PRT and BBPD emergency vehicles, and there were quite a lot of them moving around in the larger area too rather than the original position they'd all gravitated towards. He suspected he knew who had poked the anthill, now. Although he had no idea _how_.

Based on what had happened to his people, she'd probably blown someone away. It seemed to be a thing with her.

On the whole he didn't have any problems with that approach as long as it was _his_ people being the blow-ers and not the blow-ees. And as long as it was done in a way that couldn't easily be traced back to them, of course. No sense in _visibly_ ignoring the Rules. Conversely, when he was sure that no one would be in a position to know about it, he had never really let something as silly as rules of engagement get between him and a goal. You just had to be smart about it.

This new Tinker didn't seem to realize that. Or, possibly, care. The idea that she didn't even _know_ about the Rules crossed his mind but after a moment's consideration he dismissed it. He was of growing conviction that she wasn't a new Trigger at all, since the weaponry she was carrying was way too powerful to just be something she cobbled together after Triggering. He was well aware of how Tinkers needed to ramp up from the initial designs, which were usually barely functional if often entirely ridiculous inventions that shouldn't have worked in the first place. It was what made them so dangerous if they had time to plan, since they could keep escalating given enough resources.

Of course, it was also what made them so useful to people like him. He _had_ resources. Lots and lots of them. All he lacked was the Tinker…

The problem was that this one was clearly a loose cannon and didn't appear likely to agree to joining them, regardless of her own beliefs. Perhaps she was sympathetic to the Empire cause, and could be persuaded, if the right person approached her. Sending Brad, in retrospect, had probably been a mistake as the man wasn't the most diplomatic of people and tended to be somewhat heavy-handed at best. But it was of course possible that the girl was of an alignment opposed to his own organization and would never agree, or had been poisoned against them by the explosive meeting with Hookwolf.

He mulled over his options. Doing nothing was clearly the least satisfactory one. It broadcast the message that the E88 wouldn't retaliate if their people were killed, which was a dangerous signal to send. It would embolden Lung and his scum, possibly cause the Merchants to get uppity, and even leave them more vulnerable to the PRT actually doing something. Brad had been their heaviest individual hitter by a large margin, Victor's loss was a massive blow due to the enormous number of abilities he brought to the group, and Melody had been one of their best melee fighters. Losing any one of them was a huge problem, losing all three at once was a disaster in many different ways.

Could he make up for it by somehow getting this obviously extremely dangerous Tinker under his control? If he _could_ it would add a lot of firepower to the E88, since he was pretty sure that the three weapons just that video showed were most likely not the limits of her abilities. He briefly wondered what her specialization was. Possibly just destruction. She was certainly good at that.

But if he didn't get her to agree, one way or another, to work for him he was putting whoever he sent to try talking to her at risk of violent retribution and might lose more people. Which was unacceptable. So that was the massive downside to the idea of recruiting her.

If, instead, he arranged to eliminate her, the main risk was as far as he could see _failing_ to manage it. He had little doubt that she'd probably not see the funny side of a near miss. _He_ certainly wouldn't and he got the impression she was at _least_ as ruthless as he was. Probably more so, possibly more so than anyone else he'd met before. For some reason he had a flashback to his own sister and briefly shuddered.

He didn't miss her.

No. Recruiting her was more likely to fail than otherwise, he was certain of that. Perhaps if he'd tried someone a little less obvious in the first place, but in his own defense when Hookwolf was sent to bring in a new Parahuman, he'd normally succeeded, or made sure that no one _else_ could bring them in. Pity the second option hadn't played out this time…

So it was down to either ignoring the insult to his group, which led to some bad outcomes, or dealing with it permanently. And not missing. Which, considering she'd apparently detected _and caught_ an inbound. .50 caliber round with her _hand_ was going to be a challenge.

"Do we still have those Tinker-tech laser guns we retrieved from Coil's mercs last fall?" he finally  
asked slowly, still looking out the window and watching the lights move around.

There was a long pause then James said, "Yes. They're in the armory."

"Do they work?"

"They did the last time we tested them, yeah. We were saving them for the right moment. Like if we could frame Coil for something."

"I think this is probably more important," Max replied, turning his chair to face his colleague. "We can't let this stand, but I'm not really interested in seeing if she can react fast enough to shoot back if we give her any warning. A laser beam is much quicker than a rifle bullet. And a lot harder to catch."

"True." James looked thoughtful. "Think they'll handle that power armor?"

"The damn things can blow a hole through two inches of armor plate in about a second, and I doubt her power armor is that thick," Max replied with a shrug. "_I_ sure wouldn't want to be hit by one. Coil is a fucker but he certainly didn't skimp on the hardware."

"We've got four of them. And several RPGs with enough rockets for them to take out a battalion. We could zap the bitch with the lasers then finish her off with the RPGs, I guess..." James sounded a little doubtful, but more because he probably thought it was somewhat excessive rather than not thinking it would work. Which was true enough, but the girl had started it. And with the PRT running around like idiots right now they could utilize the chaos to their benefit and hit her hard then get out before the authorities even knew what was happening. Assuming they could find her, of course.

"It's a major escalation," James added.

"I know, but we don't have much choice," Max growled. "If we let her get away with this, we'll look weak, and you know what will happen then. On the other hand if we come down on her like the hand of god, it will _increase_ our reputation."

"Assuming we actually succeed," the other man muttered.

Max smiled at him. "Don't worry. Yes, she's violent and scary, but then, so are we."

His smile turned into a nasty grin. After a moment, James returned it.

"On the other hand, no sense being stupid about it. Find out where she is now, then pick out some people who are good shots and get them set up with the hardware. Tell them to wear something that doesn't tie them to us. Use ones that don't have tattoos, if you can."

"Just in case?"

"Indeed. Plausible deniability is probably a good idea." Max smirked a little. "Get Rune here. You're going to coordinate the hit from a safe distance, in the air. Find that bitch and kill her. When you succeed, we can _discreetly_ point out to certain people that if you fuck with us, we make you regret it. Briefly."

"And if we don't succeed..."

Max shrugged. "Coil sent some mercs after her. His laser guns, right? He's the only one who uses those things. It's practically a calling card. And if she gets pissed and goes after him, so much the better. Win win, as long as we're smart about it." He fixed the other man with a hard look. "Don't fuck it up, and _don't_ get too close to that crazy Tinker."

"Don't worry, I like living," James replied as he stood. "A good pair of binoculars and about a mile and a half distance should be safe enough." He turned and headed for the door, then stopped with his hand on the knob. "If we _don't_ get her, what next?"

"We can ask certain… acquaintances… to loan us people with the right skill set to do the job," Max replied after a moment. "I'd prefer not to, I don't like owing people favors, especially _them_, but we can't ignore this situation. It puts everything we've worked for at risk."

"Agreed." James, who Max knew was a true believer, unlike himself, nodded. Moments later he was gone. Standing the leader of the E88 walked over to his drinks cabinet and poured himself a very expensive glass of alcohol, then lifted it in salute towards the direction in which the place his people had died lay, before taking a sip and returning to his desk to make contingency plans. 

* * *

When Ethan and Shawn arrived at the car which the purple-armored woman and the older man were standing next to, while both rather wishing they had the option of walking in the opposite direction, they were worried they were about to witness a series of executions. The captured, still living, E88 members clearly felt the same thing based on how tense they were, and how they kept looking at the still figures of the ones that hadn't made it. Including Cricket, who had a pair of holes you could have put a fist into in her back.

A point blank buckshot blast made a pretty nasty mess. _Two_ of them was almost gratuitous. She'd probably been dead before she hit the ground.

The man was holding the weapon that Ethan assumed had done the damage, a pump action shotgun with a pistol stock, and the _way_ he was holding it made it obvious that he not only knew exactly how to use it but had no compunction about doing so if required. The manner in which it was not _quite_ pointing at the pair of them also made it apparent that this requirement wasn't necessarily off the table quite yet in his mind.

Both Ethan and Shawn made _very_ sure to not make any sudden moves.

"We'll take them off your hands, so there's no reason to do anything… unfortunate_,_" Ethan finally said, after several seconds of trying to think of the right words that were least likely to cause a massacre. He was of the opinion that this woman, who somehow radiated a sort of cold fury that was making his teeth itch and causing him to wish he was home in bed, was being totally truthful when she implied she'd just as happily finish the gang members off as let them go. It wasn't a nice feeling. Strangely, at the same time he didn't feel she was actually aiming the anger at him or his companion, and if anything was pretty much neutral towards them.

She did _not_ like the gangers, though.

"You sure?" she asked, producing a very, very disturbingly large knife that was closer to a sword from wherever she kept her weapons, then waving it meaningfully at the gangers. The three that were looking back over their shoulders, apparently braver than their compatriots, went stark white under the streetlights and sweated even more heavily when they saw it.

"Yes," he hastily said. "We're sure. I can call for backup to remove them and clean up. And maybe then we could just… talk… for a while?"

She turned her helmet to him for a second or two, then looked at the man next to her, who shrugged while not letting his gun drop at all. It had been sort of nearly pointing at the gangers while somehow also sort of nearly pointing at _them_. Ethan wasn't sure how that trick was done and didn't much like it. "Your choice," the guy said.

"Fine," she replied. The sword-knife vanished, taking an aura of imminent death with it. The aura of _nearly_ imminent death she was producing all by herself had remained. "I just need to have a word with them." Walking closer to the half-dozen shaven-headed and terrified E88 men she studied them, then pointed at one. "You. You're the leader of this lot, right?"

The Neo-Nazi, who was at least six feet tall and built like a linebacker, with shaven head festooned in swastika tattoos, swallowed hard. For an instant Ethan actually felt sorry for the fucker, then felt disgusted with himself for doing so. The man stared at the armored woman over his shoulder as she moved closer. She was even taller than he was, and had to bend over a little to put her head next to his. He tried to move away but didn't have a lot of luck, pressed against the wall as he was.

She said something else in a low voice, too quietly for either Ethan or Shawn to make out. The Nazi then shook his head quickly. The woman repeated her comment, putting a hand on the guy's shoulder in the process. There was a faint crunch and the man squeaked like a kitten being stepped on, going almost green. He started talking, very very quickly. She nodded encouragingly when he slowed down, while her hand tightened a little more.

Within a couple of minutes she seemed satisfied, releasing the man who dropped to his knees and vomited. "Thank you," she said, returning to her companion, then turning to Ethan and his colleague. "All yours." Glancing at the man she'd added, "We can talk to these guys then go see Kaiser."

"Sure," the other guy replied with a sort of grim smile. "Want some help?"

She laughed a little, in a way that nearly made Ethan piss himself, but didn't reply.

Not certain _what_ the fuck was going on, but as worried as he'd ever been, Ethan left Shawn to stare nervously at the woman whose name they still didn't know, moved a short distance away, then made a brief report to Director Piggot.

"_We'll send backup_," the director said when he finished telling her what has happened. "_Do _**_not_**_ push her. I want her out of here, not running around vaporizing Nazis._" She then muttered something that sounded as if she was regretting having to say that, before continuing more loudly, "_Leave your comms open. We need to hear what she says. And Assault?_"

"Yeah?"

"_Be careful. Losing you and Dauntless would be… unfortunate._"

He almost smiled. "Thanks. We love you too."

"_Idiot._"

That time he _did_ smirk a little, the annoyance in her voice was palpable, but he seldom got to say things like that right to her face and didn't regret it. And he was fairly sure she genuinely was concerned which was oddly morale-boosting, despite her well known dislike of Parahumans in general.

Perhaps he was finally wearing her down?

Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the scene by the car, then returned to his partner. "The PRT is sending people to take these guys and clean up the scene."

"All right," she replied, glancing at him, then going back to watching the prisoners who were sweating hard and looking like they regretted their life choices in a very significant way. Ethan was pretty sure that as and when they got out of jail they were going straight. And as far away from Brockton Bay as could be managed.

"Um..." He cleared his throat and twitched when she looked back at him. "Can we ask what exactly happened? If you don't mind?"

For some reason he _really_ didn't want to give her the slightest idea they were a threat. He'd seen how she dealt with those.

The woman shrugged a little. "I got home a little while ago after a very annoying trip and just wanted to have a pizza with my dad. These assholes and Stabbypuppy basically turned up and told me Kaiser wanted to see me. I told them to fuck off. They didn't, and got pushy." Turning her head towards the shortened building which was still occasionally disgorging debris as it settled, then glancing at Cricket's body, before finally looking down the street to the small glassy crater, she finally turned back to him and Shawn. "I don't take threats well."

'**_That_**_ much I think we worked out for ourselves,_' he carefully didn't say, but by god he thought it very hard indeed. Meeting Shawn's eyes he could see similar thoughts were going through his colleague's head.

"Was it necessary to do… that?" the other man said, waving at the building, then the other signs of destruction. Assault winced slightly as it wasn't really the ideal thing to say at that precise moment in his view. Luckily she didn't seem to take offense.

"They started it," she replied almost mildly. "I finished it. Here, anyway. I still need to clean up some loose ends."

Ethan was slightly distracted by Director Piggot's voice. She'd cut off a vicious obscenity half-way at the point that the woman had said '_her dad'_ and then gone so quiet he could almost _hear_ it. After several seconds there had been some faint mumbling which sounded horrified. Now, after another short silence, the woman was apparently saying something almost inaudible to someone else in the room, probably with her hand over the microphone. He wondered exactly what that little bit of information leakage had revealed, other than that this woman wasn't even slightly concerned about people working out her identity.

As he was about to ask another question, the distinctive sound of the PRT sirens that had been going on constantly in the background became louder, then a pair of vehicles came around the corner a couple of blocks away and headed in their direction. One was a prisoner transport truck, the other one an incident control vehicle. As they approached, another transport appeared behind them. All three parked fairly close, troopers piling out and stopping dead when they took in the scene, before the sergeant in charge walked over, his hand on his weapon and looking somewhat worried.

Even as he opened his mouth, Ethan cut him off. "Get these guys processed, clean up the site, and take photos," he said. "We'll handle the rest."

Closing his mouth, the man saluted. "Sir," he said crisply. Glancing at the two other people who were watching without moving, he looked mildly concerned, but didn't ask. Instead he went back to the group of PRT people and started directing them as they got to work.

"Maybe we should take this somewhere quieter," the man with the shotgun said. The woman looked at him and nodded. He'd slung the weapon over his shoulder and scooped a handful of shells off the roof of the car, putting them in his pocket, and now he locked the vehicle again.

"You guys like pizza?" the girl asked, turning back to them.

Shawn exchanged a glance with Assault. "Ah… yes?"

"Great. I could probably handle another one. Come on, we can talk in there." She pointed back down the road towards the only business that seemed open, a pizzeria that Assault had never been in. "Sergio won't mind."

"You _are _hungry," the man chuckled. "You've had three already."

She had a grin in her voice as she replied, "Killing Nazis is fun but it builds an appetite."

"Fair enough. I could do with another coffee myself." Both of them walked off, Ethan watching as they went with a sensation of unreality and incipient dread in his gut. He looked at Dauntless, who looked back and shook his head.

Sighing, and wishing he was somewhere else, he followed with his companion. Tonight was definitely not a normal night even for these parts and he had a horrible feeling it was only going to get stranger. 

* * *

Krieg knelt on the large piece of road Rune had ripped from the ground with her telekinesis, peering through a huge pair of binoculars mounted on a tripod. "Hold it there," he instructed the robed girl, who slightly rolled her eyes behind his back, but otherwise didn't respond. She wasn't fond of the man, but like a good little E88 member she knew how to follow orders.

Why they were floating here like this no one had bothered to tell her, but that wasn't unusual. The entire city was going strange at the moment anyway, starting when that fuck-huge explosion hours ago had lit the entire room she was in and nearly given her a heart attack. No one seemed to know what had caused it, and Kaiser had called everyone in an hour or so later so she hadn't even really had a chance to poke around on PHO to see if she could find out. All she got to do was sit around waiting to be told to do something, which as usual was providing air support for other people. It was annoying, she hadn't had a proper fight in weeks and was bored out of her skull.

"Up about ten feet," Krieg ordered. She sighed inaudibly and did as requested, floating the chunk of street up to the desired altitude, then sitting down on it. Looking up at the stars she waited for something interesting to happen. Krieg spoke quietly into his headset, apparently telling someone on the ground to move to another position, but she didn't bother trying to make it out. The breeze a hundred feet up was strong enough to blow his words away unless he raised his voice, she was getting cold, and she wasn't really enjoying the entire experience.

After a couple more minutes she lay flat on her back, folded her arms across her chest, and just grumbled to herself. Holding the platform up was trivial and didn't take much concentration, so she was free to think how irritating this all was. Which was very.

Hearing PRT sirens heading somewhere different over the background sound of them around the city, she sat up and peered off in that direction. A few sets of lights were visible intermittently as the vehicles headed away from the large group of them over by Winslow to the east a few miles, apparently going more or less towards the bay, somewhat closer to them. After a moment, she shrugged and lay down again. They were still a long way off and not apparently heading right at them, so what the PRT did was no interest of hers. 

* * *

Staring at the blurry video she'd pulled from PHO, Emily tried to work out what the hell was going on. "That's the Hebert man," she finally said, pointing at the screen. "I'm sure of it." She looked at Renick. "Get one of the people out there to get a better image of him to confirm it." Her second in command nodded, turning away for a moment to issue a quiet command through the comms system. Only a few seconds later they had an uplink from the squad sergeant's helmet camera of the two people who had apparently wrecked an E88 snatch squad and killed _three_ of their Parahumans. The much higher quality video showed Assault and Dauntless talking to a tall skinny man holding a shotgun and an equally tall figure in matte purple power armor of a design she'd recently become all to familiar with.

"Fuck. It _is_ Hebert. And that girl called him _dad_, which means _that_ is Taylor Hebert. The missing girl from Winslow."

"In other words, someone who had an ax to grind with that place," Renick corrected, his voice disturbed, as he watched the two people head off down the street with their own Parahumans following after a glance at each other. "That's the link we were missing, I think. She was last seen in Winslow and her father claimed she was the subject of bullying to a degree that is sickening." He looked at Emily, eyes suddenly widening. "By one of our own Wards."

Emily nodded slowly, her mind whirling. "Where did she go? How did she come back? And how the fuck did she end up with all that equipment and the training to use it, in only two weeks? If she Triggered, how did she find all the resources to build that stuff in so little time, and where did she do it? And why did she hop around all over the damn _planet_ taking out S class threats before she turned up here?" Those were only a few of the many, _many_ questions she had. Renick shook his head, not knowing the answers any more than she did.

"There's one big problem that immediately comes to mind, if that really is the Hebert girl. This is her home town. Your approach of wanting that person to go somewhere else may be dead in the water..."

"Shit." Emily rubbed her forehead, thinking hard. This situation was getting worse and worse. Not only did they have someone who was capable of removing with prejudice a large chunk of the city and had done so, but now it looked like that person had fairly good reasons not to be happy with the PRT. Assuming she knew that Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker, and they had to assume that either she did already or shortly would since her father knew, and wasn't even remotely pleased about it.

"We can't do anything about this without more information," she finally said. "All we can do for now is hope Assault and Dauntless can get that for us, _without_ starting world war three in the process."

Renick sighed. "Yeah. This doesn't make me feel any happier."

"Nor me." Emily shook her head. "And there's _still_ no word from the Chief Director, the Protectorate, or anyone at the top. If those bastards dump all this on my head and claim it's my problem I'm not going to be happy about it."

He nearly chuckled but clearly rethought that in light of the glare she gave him. "I'm sure they won't do that, Emily," he replied after a moment.

"Yeah, right." She looked back at the screen. "I just hope the E88 doesn't do something stupid because of this. We have no _idea_ about way too many things surrounding this case and them getting involved would only cause total chaos."

A couple of seconds passed, then they slowly met each other's eyes. "Oh, hell," she groaned.

Renick was already ordering more PRT personnel onto the street, and telling them to look for E88 people as a matter of priority. Emily slumped in her chair with a sensation that the boot she could almost _feel_ dropping towards her was still gathering speed. 

* * *

Assault watched as the girl nodded to the guy behind the counter as she headed for a table. No one else was in the place at the moment. The proprietor didn't seem all that surprised to see them, and not particularly worried either. He merely nodded back. "Still hungry?" he asked, smiling a little.

"Yeah, built up an appetite again," she said, laughing. "Sorry about the noise."

"No problem. It was in a good cause," he replied, making Ethan glance at Dauntless, who was staring at the man.

Both of them stared at the _woman_ when she sat down and casually removed the helmet of her power armor, revealing the face of a girl that seemed perhaps eighteen, possibly nineteen, with long almost black curly hair that somehow fitted inside the thing. She bore a distinct family resemblance to the older man, who'd sat down next to her and waved to the counter guy, who nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. Looking between them, Ethan decided it had to be father and daughter. Neither one of which appeared concerned about keeping her identity secret. He wasn't comforted about that. It implied either ignorance, which seemed unlikely, or a confidence that it didn't _matter_ if anyone knew who she was. The latter was deeply worrying, because it in turn implied that she considered herself able to deal with any likely threat to either of them.

Thinking back a short while, he was fairly sure she was right.

"The seafood pizza here is great," she said, picking up a menu, then waving to the seats on the other side of the table. With a certain amount of trepidation and confusion over the entire situation Ethan walked over and sat down, Shawn following and doing likewise. The pizza man returned, putting a large coffee in front of the man and a large coke in front of the girl, who smiled at him. "Thanks, Sergio."

"My pleasure, Taylor." He glanced at the two heroes. "Anything for you guys?"

"Ah… A coffee, thanks. Black with one sugar," Ethan replied. Dauntless shook his head and didn't say anything. The girl ordered a small seafood pizza, Sergio quickly wrote it down, then brought Ethan his coffee, before vanishing again.

Picking up her coke the girl, apparently called Taylor, sipped it while eyeing them. Assault got the impression she was darkly amused by their puzzlement, and he was certain the mostly silent man who was watching them carefully as he drank his own coffee was. "What else do you want to know?" she finally said, putting the glass down again.

"Well, what happened outside would be a good place to start," Ethan replied after a sip of his own coffee to calm his nerves and give him time to think. "In more detail, maybe?"

She studied him, then nodded. "Sure. Like I said, I got back after a _very_ annoying trip, and a really long day, met Dad, had some really good pizza, and we were heading home when those idiots turned up..." It only took her about five minutes to explain the sequence of events although Ethan couldn't help thinking that there were a lot of things missing as far as her own background went. He was aware that Director Piggot was listening, but the woman, aside from a couple of faint comments, didn't interrupt.

When she finished, a voice in his ear said, "Ask her if she really is Taylor Hebert, please. Politely."

"Excuse me, but… Are you Taylor Hebert?" he asked. The last name was somewhat familiar, he'd heard that a girl of that name had gone missing a couple of weeks ago, from Winslow…

His thoughts ground to a halt as he started putting a few things together.

But that girl had been about fifteen, hadn't she? This one was definitely older, he was sure of that. So what the hell happened?

"Yeah, that's me. Why?" She tilted her head enquiringly.

"Taylor Hebert, the girl who went missing from Winslow High School?" Dauntless asked, leaning forward and glancing at Ethan. He'd clearly heard of the case too, which had been being investigated by the BBPD as far as either of them knew. There had been a couple of small articles in the paper about it, and her father Danny Hebert, who was something to do with the Dock Worker's Union. And presumably the man sitting next to her.

"That fucking place," she spat. "Yes. First place I visited when I got back here." Her smile was truly vicious. "It's much better now."

"It's entirely gone now," Shawn muttered.

"Which makes it better," she grinned. The grin abruptly vanished. "It'll be even better than that when I get rid of the remaining problems. But Kaiser is the more urgent problem."

"Um… About that." Ethan swallowed as her eyes fixed on his. "You can't just kill him."

"Oh, I can, don't worry. It's easy," she replied with a toothy and terrifying smirk. "I'm _really_ good at killing things."

"What things?" Shawn asked after a few seconds.

"What have you got?" she said, leaning back as Sergio turned up with her pizza, putting it in front of her. "Thanks."

He nodded and left again.

Ethan tried to suppress the urge he'd suddenly had to get up and leave hastily. "What my friend here means is that ideally we don't go around killing people," he said.

"It solves a lot of problems," she commented, picking up one slice and taking a bite out of it. "If more of those fuckers were killed this place wouldn't be such a shithole to start with."

Both heroes exchanged a look.

"There are… well, laws against that sort of thing."

"Doesn't stop _them_ doing it, does it?" she asked, eating some more pizza. "Seems to me that those laws mostly work to stop people preventing the villains doing whatever they want."

"But without laws, it would be even worse, believe me," Shawn told her.

"I'm not sure how, at times," Danny remarked, causing them to look at him."All the gangs between kill literally hundreds of people a year, and have done for at least the last twenty years or more. Ironically it was actually safer when Marquis was around. He at least only went after people who threatened him. Kaiser and his people kill minorities for fun, and anyone else who gets in the way. Or sometimes is only walking past. I've seen at least a dozen reports this _week_ about deaths attributed to the E88 alone, most of them to Hookwolf. That asshole should have been in the Birdcage for years but it takes my daughter to finally put him down. You guys certainly didn't stop him."

"It's not quite that easy, Mr Hebert," Shawn said, sounding concerned.

"Yeah, it kinda was that easy," Taylor chuckled. "He was reasonably tough but compared to some of the things I've killed over the last few years..."

They stared at her, then at each other.

"Years?" Ethan echoed.

"Yeah. Probably… something like about five years personal timeline? Around that. It's hard to be absolutely accurate." She looked thoughtful, while her father watched her with a look of pride and sympathy. "After you've died the first couple of hundred times, you sort of lose track of it. Stops being all that important really."

She picked up another slice of pizza as Ethan gaped at her, trying to work out what the _fuck_ she was talking about.

Eventually he had to ask, and he was sure she was waiting for that based on the tiny smirk she was wearing.

"Any chance you can explain that?" he said a little helplessly. This was far outside his comfort zone and his normal sense of humor seemed to be having a very hard time coping.

"I still don't have all the details myself," she replied, after finishing the slice. "But it started when I woke up the first time in a pile of bloody crap in a storage room on Mars in 2236."

She laughed at the expression he must have had on his face, while in his ear Piggot made a very strange sound. Then she proceeded to relate a story that terrified him worse than anything he'd ever heard or seen, mostly because he was certain it was totally true.

It got _much_ worse when she produced a small device that turned out to be some sort of holographic projector and started showing them _videos_ of what she'd experienced, apparently recorded by her armor. 

* * *

Listening to the story the Hebert girl was telling, at first Emily scoffed, but after a while she started to get a horrible sensation in the pit of her stomach. That got steadily worse as the story unfolded. While she was sure a lot was being left out, there was far too much detail in it to be entirely fictional, and it was backed up by certain evidence. And her finely honed bullshit detector which was screaming at her that the damn girl was both entirely truthful and the single most dangerous and _angriest_ person she'd ever heard of.

If she found Sophia, that idiotic girl was _dead_. That much was abundantly clear.

Emily had a brief thought that perhaps if she threw Sophia to the entirely absent mercies of the Hebert girl that it might save the city.

She and Renick listened as the girl talked, getting more and more concerned. And deeply scared. 

* * *

By the time the Hebert girl stopped talking, Shawn was literally shivering. The undercurrent of raw rage that had come into her voice a few times left him nearly shitting himself, despite all the things he'd seen in his time as a hero. She was _not_ someone he'd want aiming that at him or anything he cared about, since it was blatantly obvious that she would have zero compunctions about dealing with problems permanently.

Hookwolf had discovered _that_ to his cost. And it seemed likely that Kaiser would as well unless they could persuade her to let them handle it. He wasn't at all certain that was even possible not to mention likely. She seemed like the sort of person who didn't leave a job unfinished.

How and why she'd ended up where she did was a total mystery, and a lot of the story seemed to be missing since she obviously wasn't telling them everything, but considering that, if she was right, she'd experienced close to five years of essentially constant combat in the two weeks of real time she'd been gone, that was entirely understandable. And it explained how she'd become so fucking dangerous, too. Five years of never-ending combat in an environment that almost literally sounded like hell was far, far more than any soldier would have. Even in a war you normally had some down time, and you didn't have these '_plasma imps'_ shooting fireballs at you.

And if you died, you _certainly_ didn't restart at the beginning and have to do it all over again.

The fact that she was more or less sane, if extremely annoyed by the entire experience, was almost unbelievable. He wondered what else she'd learned during that other than how to kill things _really_ efficiently.

Both he and Ethan simply sat there and looked at her as she fell silent, his colleague holding a cold and half-finished cup of coffee in one hand, which was shaking slightly. The girl picked up the little projector thing that had shown them scene that would feature in his nightmares for years to come, turned it off, and put it away somewhere. "So that's pretty much it. Now I'm home. Got a few last things to deal with and then I can sit down and work out what I'm going to do next. Obviously going to school _isn't_ on the list. I doubt there's anything I could learn there any more."

She shrugged. "I can probably figure out some way to make some cash. I learned a few neat tricks."

Standing, she looked down at them as she put her helmet back on, while her father who had remained mostly quiet during the story also got up. "Now if you'll excuse me I have some more Nazis to find. I need to explain a few things to them."

They watched as she headed for the exit, her father stopping at the counter to hand Sergio some cash, then waving and following her. Both men exchanged a look, blinked, and jumped up. "Oh, fuck," Dauntless mumbled. He was certain she wasn't joking.

They went after her, finding her standing outside looking off to the left, away from where the PRT had finished cleaning up the scene before they went away. He followed her eyes to see a dozen men dressed in dark clothes and carrying weapons coming around the corner near where Hookwolf had died.

His eyes widened, but he didn't even have time to react before things got very complicated very suddenly indeed. 

* * *

Tammi sat up again as she heard Krieg's voice become more urgent. He was still looking through those ridiculously large binoculars at something in the distance. She squinted to try to make out what he was so interested in, while wishing that people would tell her what was going on. Through the gaps in the taller buildings, she could make out some sort of illuminated window at ground level, some sort of shop or something, on a street at least a mile away. There were some people outside it, silhouetted against the light, but the figures were so small at this distance all she could tell was that they were there. The street ran at an angle from their position, going off at about forty five degrees until it vanished behind the buildings.

Krieg said something that sounded like "Shoot the bitch," into his headset.

Tammi's head snapped around to stare at him, then she looked back in time to see a number of purple flickers of light. 

* * *

Taylor watched the men, obviously E88 gangers, as they stopped a couple of hundred meters away. She'd felt them coming for the last twenty seconds or so. Her armor's systems instantly highlighted the weapons they were all carrying, assessing them and assigning a threat level, which was low. She stepped in front of her father, hearing him chamber a round in the shotgun he'd acquired from that first E88 fuckwit.

Before she could say anything, the men opened fire. She heard Dauntless make a sound of shock but didn't bother looking around.

Half a dozen bright purple energy beams hit her, two more missing and going past, one on either side. Her armor registered the hits and showed a small momentary drop in integrity before it compensated. Her eyes narrowed as she pulled out her plasma rifle.

The first RPG round screamed past some two meters to the right, the rocket flare briefly illuminating the entire street with a yellow flash. She didn't move a muscle, hearing it explode somewhere in the distance behind her. The next two were fired simultaneously, both of them tracking towards her this time.

She lifted the plasma gun and shot both of them out of the air before they'd got halfway to her.

Her anger, which had been simmering under the surface as it always was, rose.

Taylor aimed, held the trigger down, and moved the energy weapon sideways in a quick motion. Then she turned away from the bisected gangers even as they were falling to the ground, put the gun away, equipped the rail gun, and aimed at a much more distant target.

She fired. 

* * *

Rune's eyes widened as the distant scene went from four people standing next to a window to total chaos in a second, then they widened even more as a violently brilliant blue-white ball of _something_ headed towards them, growing from a pinprick to a basketball-sized sphere of death almost too fast to track. Without even thinking about it she dived off the platform her powers were holding in the air, feeling a massive wave of heat pass over her back before a huge force slammed her sideways. She lost consciousness as she bounced off the first building. 

* * *

Ethan had just barely managed to avoid the purple laser beam or whatever it was that went between the Hebert girl and himself. Several more directly hit her, apparently to no effect, while the last one skimmed over Shawn's shoulder and removed a chunk of armor and flesh with a sound like someone slapping a metal table with a steak. His companion yelled in pain as he dropped, but Ethan didn't spare him a glance since he was much more invested in the fucking _RPG_ _rounds_ that these new idiots had just fired at them.

The first one went past at some distance, exploding on a building behind them, while the next two didn't even make it more than halfway as Hebert moved so fast he couldn't make out the motion. A blue ball of energy hit each rocket near enough at the same time, fractions of a second after they were fired, and before the explosions died away she'd also cut down all the attackers in one shot.

Then she whipped around, the weapon changing to something even larger, and a much bigger blue-white discharge roared off into the distance, causing him and Dauntless to duck while staring. The noise was incredible. Far in the distance a moment later there was a large explosion over the rooftops of the buildings, the whitish flash illuminating the scene.

"Christ," he said, bewildered at how quickly everything had happened. He was used to fast moving battles but this was ridiculous and had come completely out of the blue. Not to mention the sheer efficiency and brutality of her actions, which were clearly aimed at eliminating the danger permanently and immediately.

He wondered a little hysterically if she even understood the _concept_ of '_non-lethal takedown_.'

Or '_overkill._'

Director Piggot was yammering in his ear, but he ignored her as he watched the horribly lethal young woman put her enormous weapon away, while wondering how many _other_ weapons she actually had on her. And where she kept the fucking things.

"Right. Enough is enough. Kaiser's beginning to piss me the hell off," the armored girl said in a hard voice. "Time to point out how that ends."

Walking over to Shawn who was moaning in pain, a large cauterized and blackened wound on his right shoulder where his costume had been vaporized, she shook her head. "For god's sake, it's only a small third degree burn," she said, sounding slightly annoyed, although she was almost visibly radiating rage again. Ethan was profoundly grateful that it wasn't aimed at them. "Man up, will you?" She produced a small device like an auto-injector and bent over him, stabbing it into his exposed skin. "Here, this will fix it. Stings a bit, but you get used to it in the end."

She walked off with her father next to her as Shawn screamed in agony. Ethan watched, amazed and a little sickened, as the blackened flesh quickly repaired itself. By the time his friend was only groaning a little and apparently entirely healthy, he looked up to see both Heberts had disappeared.

"_Assault!_" The voice in his ear was furious. "_Report! What the _**_fuck_**_ is going on?_" He realized that she'd been shouting for some time now.

He got to his feet and hauled Dauntless to his own, the other hero feeling his shoulder in shock. Both of them looked at the fresh batch of dead gang members at the far end of the street.

"We may have a problem, Director," he said as calmly as he could, which wasn't very.

Ethan had a feeling that this night was going to be a very long one, unless you were a Nazi. 

* * *

When they came back with chinese food, Lisa was sitting on the sofa looking out the window next to the TV with the weirdest expression Brian had seen on her yet. She didn't react when they entered, just continued peering out into the night. He looked at her, then at the window, not seeing anything of interest out there other than a few street lights.

He did work out that she was looking towards Brockton Bay.

As Alec and Rachel unpacked the bag of food, he walked over and poked her. Very slowly, she turned her head to meet his eyes. He saw her pupils were tiny pinpricks, giving her a very disturbing look which immediately worried him considerably.

"Hey, you all right?" he asked, concerned.

She blinked, then opened her mouth.

**"In the second age, at the final battle, when all that Hell could field had been vanquished, one stood. Tempered by the fires of RAGE she overcame all. In her FURY she ****_broke_ the forces that dared stand against her, taking her place as the rightful Heir through trial by combat. The Umbral Plains lie in ruins, the Dark Lords are cast beyond the Outer Realms for all eternity, while across the worlds all know that _She Has Come_. Absolute in her determination to bring eternal torment to those who wrong her and hers, yet merciful to those who follow her in awe of her Glory, Power, and Anger, she is named… _The Doom Queen._****"**

The deep ghastly voice that spoke those words was _not_ that of a seventeen year old girl, Brian thought in horror as he pressed himself against the wall as far from her as he could get in the hotel room, next to Rachel and Alec who were doing the same thing. He could smell urine from the direction of the dogs, who were hiding under the table.

He wasn't even sure that the voice was _human_.

Lisa blinked again, then shook her head. "Oh, great, you got chinese. Did you remember beef chow mein for me?" she said perfectly normally as she hopped to her feet and went over to the table. Sniffing, she looked down, then grimaced. "Rachel, your fucking dogs have peed all over the floor."

She glanced at them and frowned. "What's wrong with you guys?"

Peeling himself off the wall, Brian felt very much that whatever was going on he didn't like it at all and wished it would go away and leave him alone.


	12. DOOMed XI: And DOOM followed with her

Skidmark looked out the window of the Merchant's main safe house, staring at the strange procession of figures that was moving along the badly lit street several floors below. Not a one of them was even slightly normal and most of them made the backs of his eyeballs itch in a highly disturbing manner. A sea of bizarre creatures walked, flew, slithered, and deliquesced their way past as he gaped in stunned horror, a sensation of creeping awe making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Beside him, his girlfriend and second in command of their gang was motionless and silent, her eyes so wide he could see the whites out of the corners of his own.

In the midst of the pack, one of the things paused, turning a misshapen head up to stare directly at them. Glowing red eyes met human ones. Several more of the creatures also stopped, until a constellation of differently colored gazes were fixed on their observers.

The tableaux held for thirty seconds or so, then the first one turned away, the others quickly following as it scuttled after the main group. All of them vanished from sight seconds later, leaving the street as empty as it had started as.

For the first time in what seemed like hours, Skidmark let out the breath he'd been holding, feeling faint and for once absolutely stone cold sober. There was a sensation going through his bones that something fundamental had just changed and it wasn't something he wanted any part of in any way at all.

Looking at the woman next to him, he could see in her eyes as clearly as if she'd said it out loud that she felt the same, and was terrified to the bottom of her soul. He knew exactly what that was like.

Both of them had seen some pretty nasty things over the years, a good proportion of which were their doing, but neither one had ever even contemplated what they'd just watched go past, not even when under the influence of the most powerful drugs on the market. And neither wanted to experience what had just happened again. Ever.

Dropping the crack pipe in his hand to the floor without a thought, he grabbed Squealer's hand and dragged her deeper into the building. Only minutes later the entire gang was battening down the hatches in a very literal sense, nailing up doors and windows and retreating to the most easily guarded areas of the old factory, behind solid concrete walls and steel doors.

He wasn't sure it would be enough, but it was all they had. If they were still alive in the morning, he intended to make sure he found somewhere else. Somewhere a long, long way away from Brockton Bay and whatever the hell that had just moved in… 

* * *

Tammi groaned, rolling over a little then stopping abruptly as she felt something deep in her pelvis grind, causing a wave of pain so intense that she couldn't even scream in agony. Her vision blanked out for a moment and she almost stopped breathing. When it finally subsided, she very very gently settled back into position, the pain reverting to a background level that under normal circumstances would have been more than enough to make her yell. As it was, it was almost a relief compared to what had just happened.

She tried to work out what had happened, and where she was. The last thing she recalled was…

The girl suddenly remembered an actinic blue-white fireball that had '_instant death_' written all over it zooming towards her at a ferocious speed… Krieg screaming in shock, the scream cut off half way… herself flying through the air… a blast of heat and a sound so loud it was a physical impact from behind and above her…

Blinking, she attempted to put all the clues together.

Krieg had been running some sort of operation from a distance, but he hadn't told her what it was. He'd ordered someone to open fire on '_the bitch_' then everything went to hell. From what she'd seen whoever it was had shot back, some sort of energy weapon flashing brilliantly in the distance, then that fireball coming right at them. Somehow this person had detected Krieg and herself from more than a mile away and taken them out with one shot. Tammi herself had only lived because she'd flung herself off her own platform without a second thought, the incoming fireball looking so lethal she didn't even hesitate. Krieg, from the sounds she could remember, hadn't been as lucky.

But now where was she? And how the fuck had she actually survived in the first place? They'd been nearly a hundred feet in the air, and that was certainly far higher than was normally survivable. She was no Brute nor was her costume armored.

Trying to lift her right hand to wipe her face, which seemed to have something wet and warm running down it, caused her to freeze in pain again. It was definitely broken too, as well as whatever had happened to her pelvis, which was dull agony. Her left arm moved without too much difficulty, though, and she rubbed her forehead then looked at her hand in the illumination from the streetlight behind her somewhere. Dark fluid covered it, so she was clearly bleeding.

All that aside, she was surprisingly alive for a hundred foot fall. Looking around as much as she could without moving her head she saw that she was lying in an alleyway between two tall buildings, and that directly above her was a fire escape that seemed to have a dent in the railing. She could vaguely recall landing on something narrow with an enormous impact, after feeling several other hits to her body, but there was still a chunk of time missing between jumping off the platform and that.

After some rather muzzy thought, she decided that she must have been blown sideways by whatever had been fired at them when it went off, hit the building they were floating next to, and somehow bounced off the sides of this alleyway on the way down in a manner that had slowed her enough that she didn't die on impact. It seemed unlikely, but she was here, so something had clearly saved her.

She wondered where Krieg was. Or his body, at least. She very much doubted he'd made it.

There might not even _be_ a body, of course…

Lying there for an unknown time in almost a daze, she eventually snapped more alert as she heard footsteps. Coming from somewhere behind her head, they sounded solid and determined, not like the person responsible for them was even trying to hide their presence. As they neared she could hear a second set, somewhat quieter, accompanying the first ones.

Wondering somewhat fatalistically if this was the cops, or the PRT, or perhaps some other person here to either capture or kill her, she kept still. Until she knew who it was it was probably best not to let them know she was still alive, not that she really had much of a way to resist. She was far too badly injured to fight, and based on the slowly growing numbness in her chest, might not actually have that much longer anyway.

She decided that she fucking hated Kaiser and all his little plans. She was sixteen, for fucks sake, and now she was going to bleed to death in some shitty alley in a shitty city because of an asshole following the orders of another asshole.

Life was a fucker sometimes, she thought dizzily.

Both sets of footsteps stopped just out of her visual range. There was silence for a moment, then a woman's voice said, "Huh. You were right, she's alive."

A man answered, not sounding all that worried, "Probably not for long considering the amount of blood."

"Yeah. Should probably do something about that. This is one of Kaiser's, right?"

"Rune. Telekinetic, she provides air support for them."

"Think she knows anything useful?"

"One way to find out."

"True." There was a small grim chuckle. Then a figure bent over Tammi, coming into view. Her eyes widened at the helmet, with a couple of small tally lights on it, that looked down at her. As far as she could see the woman was in an impressive and dangerous-looking suit of power armor unlike anything she'd seen before. It certainly wasn't a Parahuman she recognized.

She wondered why Krieg had tried to kill her. And how he'd misjudged things so fucking badly.

The prick. If he wasn't dead, and she survived this, she'd find him and kill him herself for putting her in this position.

"You want to live, Rune?" the armored woman asked her.

Tammi looked at her, then painfully nodded.

"You going to tell me where Kaiser is?"

She nodded again.

"This is going to hurt a little," the woman said as she bent down and jabbed some sort of injection thing through Tammi's robe into her shoulder.

This was definitely not a lie, the girl found out instantly. She screamed in agony then the pain got too much for her to utter a sound. It became so intense the world went a funny color for some period of time, then abruptly it stopped completely like someone flipped a switch.

Relaxing suddenly as the pain vanished, Tammi nearly passed out in relief. Her vision wobbled for a moment before everything snapped back into focus.

"Jesus fucking _Christ_ that hurt," she said almost absently, shocked at how _much_ it had hurt and how instantly it had _stopped_ hurting. She hadn't been aware that it was possible to be in that much pain and hoped she'd never have to experience anything like it again.

On the other hand… she tentatively lifted her right arm, finding that it moved easily and without any problems. Very cautiously rolling onto her back from the positions she'd been in, slightly on one side, she sat up when nothing hurt or made horrible sounds inside her head this time.

Feeling her face, she found the bleeding had also stopped, although it was sticky with partially dried blood. Taking a couple of deep breaths, she levered herself to her feet then leaned on the wall closest to her, while turning to look at the people standing there watching her.

One was the woman in armor, which was even more impressive than she'd realized when she got a good look at it. It seemed under the bad lighting to be almost black, but when the woman moved a little, a gleam of a dark purple was seen on her shoulder in the illumination coming from behind them.

The other one was a man, tall and thin, holding a riot shotgun in one hand in a way that Tammi felt indicated he was very practiced with the thing. It wasn't pointed at her, but she was all too aware of it, and was certain it was loaded and ready for action. While the man looked like some sort of office worker or something for the most part, there was something hard about his expression that belied that, and his eyes made her shiver inside. Even behind glasses they were terrifyingly flat.

"So. Talk. Kaiser. Where can I find him?" The woman took a step closer. "I need a word."

Tammi swallowed. Something about that voice conveyed a level of calm, absolute fury that made her want to run and hide, possibly forever. She took a breath, then started speaking. Fast.

Fuck Kaiser. He'd nearly got her killed, and while she'd put up with a lot, that was too far. This woman wasn't fucking around and she was certain, to a level she'd never experienced before, was both capable of killing her and _prepared_ to kill her on the spot if she thought Tammi wasn't cooperating. So she was going to cooperate like no one had ever cooperated before, then hope she'd live to run away.

Kaiser was scary.

_This_ woman made him look like a fluffy little kitten.

When she'd told the pair everything she knew, suspected, or guessed, about the E88 the armored woman nodded. "Thank you." Both of them turned to leave.

"What about me?" Rune asked, slightly bewildered. This wasn't the way it was supposed to work, right from the start, and the abrupt dismissal was… strange.

"Don't try to go against me and you can live," the woman said, stopping and looking back at her. There was a blur of motion and Tammi was staring into the barrel of some sort of massive weapon unlike anything she'd ever seen, with no indication of where it had come from. She froze again, too terrified to even squeak in shock. "Or..."

"I get it," she finally managed to say. "Honest, I get it."

"Good." The gun vanished again. "Find something useful to do and we don't have a problem." The woman turned away and walked off, the man next to her.

Tammi waited until the footsteps died away into silence before she sagged against the wall in relief, feeling the rough brickwork scrape on her robes. Sighing, she put her hands over her face and felt the crusty blood for a moment or two.

A strange almost growl from the other end of the alley where it was completely dark made her snap her head around and stare. Then she turned, and very deliberately not running, left the area with alacrity and an urge to figure out what to do that didn't involve the E88, Kaiser, or terrifying armored women with huge guns.

She didn't really care _what_ it was, but it needed to not have any of those involved.

Or growling things. That part was also important. 

* * *

Everyone in the _Captain's Table_ twitched a little as the door slammed open, all eyes turning to see a pair of skin-headed young men swagger in. Pat, the owner and operator of the oldest pub in the city (and to his knowledge the second oldest in the country,) sighed under his breath as he put a hand on the very large and very deadly shotgun under the bar counter, without standing up from his stool.

"Oh, no, not again," he grumbled very quietly.

"Yo, bar guy, we want two beers," one of the young men said in an ebullient manner, looking around with a sneer before turning back to Pat. His friend, who was wearing a long leather coat that he probably thought made him look cool, was smirking in a nasty fashion.

"Do you have any preference?" Pat asked mildly, nodding to the beer taps that ran down the back of the counter. He didn't remove his hand from the weapon, not being an idiot and knowing what was going to happen with the certainty of someone who had seen it before. In the docks of Brockton Bay, any long term resident had seen _all_ of it before, and he'd been there for a good long time.

"Yeah. That one." The man, who was very clearly and almost stereotypically E88 based on his haircut, demeanor, and the swastikas tattooed on his hands and the sides of his head, replied, pointing at a local lager. He then produced a 9mm pistol in his other hand and waved it meaningfully. "And all the cash in the till, too."

"Kaiser know you lads are freelancing?" Pat said, not moving. Both the new arrivals frowned, with a glance at each other. "Because I'm pretty sure he'd be kind of pissed about it."

"What are you talking about, Irish?" the second gang member demanded, pulling a sawn off shotgun from under his coat and more or less pointing it at Pat, who sighed faintly again.

"What I'm talking about, you feckers, is that you're awfully close to the DWU right now, and right next door to the ABB too. Of the two, if I were you I'd be more worried about the dock guys." He shrugged a little as they looked somewhat confused mixed with a certain level of growing anger as their attempted robbery didn't go the way they were expecting. "Kaiser isn't daft enough to rile _them_ up. Not after what happened last time. So, unless he's had a rush of stupidity to the head recently, he's not told you to go shaking me down, which means this is something you geniuses came up with on your own."

"So? What you gonna do about it?" the second ganger demanded.

Pat merely nodded his head to indicate something behind them. Both exchanged a look, then somewhat cautiously peered back.

The four men and two women standing about twenty feet away grinned at them over three handguns, a shotgun, and two baseball bats, one of which had a nail through the end in a somewhat gratuitously vicious way.

"You're interrupting my drinking time, boys," the elderly man in the front of the group said evenly, his very large and very well used handgun not wavering from the lead ganger. He was at least seventy but was almost as substantial as both of them put together, while his eyes had a completely flat glint to them. "I don't like people interrupting my drinking time. I _especially_ don't like _Nazis_ interrupting my drinking time. So fuck off and we won't shoot you in the knees then chuck you in the bay."

The two E88 men swallowed, paling noticeably. Finding a burst of courage from somewhere and puffing himself up, the first one said, "Kaiser would burn this place to the ground if you do that."

"Yeah, no," the old man chuckled. "Trust me, that won't happen. Never has before, certainly." He pulled the hammer of the pistol back with his thumb, the _click_ loud in the otherwise quiet bar. Everyone else present was watching silently, without any real expression.

The second ganger looked back at Pat, his eyes widening when he saw that the barman was now looking at him down the barrel of his own shotgun. "Um… Jeff?" He nudged his companion who was apparently trying to think of something else to say. The other man turned his head, saw the face of his friend, and also looked back.

He went a funny color and his own weapon wavered in his grip. "Oh, fuck," he said almost plaintively.

"Drop the guns and bugger off, don't come back either," Pat ordered, motioning with his weapon. "Now," he added when they looked reluctant. With bad grace both did as ordered, putting their firearms on the bar, then backing up with their hands carefully in view. "You're both barred as well."

"You're going to pay for this you Irish bastard," '_Jeff_' blustered.

"I'll take me chances, lads. Go on, away with you." He waved the weapon towards the door. Both of them backed further up until they made it to the doorway, then turned and bolted. Sighing and shaking his head, Pat put the safety back on and stashed the gun under the bar again. "Idiots. Third time in the last two months."

"Kaiser may need a reminder," the old man said as he uncocked his pistol and put it away, while the others went back to their tables. "Might have to do something about that." He walked over to the bar, grinning. "Worked up a real thirst defending the honor of the pub, there, Pat," he added meaningfully.

Pat looked at him, shook his head, and moved to fill a pint glass. "Are you _ever_ going to pay me, you ancient pain in the arse?" he asked almost rhetorically.

"I'm sure we can come to an arrangement eventually, Pat my lad," the other man chuckled.

"Yeah, like I haven't heard _that_ about a thousand times," Pat grumbled under his breath, causing the much older man to laugh again. "So, what do you think that fecking enormous boom was earlier?"

"Sounded like it came from over by Winslow, but other than that, no idea."

"Surprised you didn't go and look."

"Not my problem. Cops and PRT are all over the place, let them deal with it. I'm just here for a quiet pint or two."

"Or ten."

Pat handed over the full pint, which very shortly became a half-full pint. "Ahh. That's the stuff."

Picking up the two abandoned weapons, Pat inspected them with an expert eye, then unloaded both and put them and their ammunition under the bar as well. "Might come in handy," he said as he sat down again. "Push off, Erwin, and drink that somewhere else, the noise is disgusting."

Erwin saluted him with the glass and wandered off, rejoining the small group he'd been telling ridiculous tall tales to. The pub background sound level rose again to the normal point, while in the next hour or so various regulars came and went. Pat put his book down and served drinks when required but otherwise merely read quietly. A second, much quieter yet still fairly substantial explosion made everyone look up from their conversations for a moment, but they all resumed their current occupation when nothing else happened. This was, after all, Brockton Bay, and explosions in the night were fairly common. Nothing on the scale of the first one, but as Erwin had said, it wasn't their business and they all knew when to stay out of things.

Some time after that, the door crashed open once more. Everyone looked up to see an unpleasantly familiar face smirking at them as half a dozen more like him came in and pointed automatic weapon around the place. Jeff strutted over to the bar, putting his hands on it and leaning forward to glare at Pat, who looked back expressionlessly.

"I told you you were going to regret this," he said triumphantly with an evil grin.

"You _really_ don't want to do this, laddie," Pat replied after a moment, his eyes flicking past the man towards Erwin, who made a very tiny motion of his head. One of the gangers was pointing at AK at the old guy's entire table, all of whom were sitting extremely still in a manner that Pat at least knew meant trouble. "I'm telling you, Kaiser is going to have words about it when he hears."

"One stupid bar in the docks burns down?" Jeff laughed. "Why would Kaiser care about that?" He shook his head. "You idiots think you can go against the E88 and live? Yeah, right." Lifting a hand he snapped his fingers, causing one of the new arrivals to hand him a bottle with a rag hanging out of the neck, a light straw colored liquid sloshing around inside it. "But before that I think I want all your cash. And my gun back." He produced a lighter from somewhere in his other hand.

"You do realize that torching a building while you're _inside_ the building is kind of stupid, right?" Pat asked, while carefully working out how quickly he could lay hands on his shotgun which he could see under the bar, invisible from Jeff's viewpoint. "Most people do it from the outside."

"Don't get clever, you asshole," Jeff snapped. He waved the lighter near the bottle but didn't light it. "Money, gun, now."

With a sigh Pat reached out with one hand and punched the drawer open key on the cash register, standing up to reach inside. His other hand slipped under it for a moment. Jeff didn't apparently notice. Plucking all the bills from the drawer, which was about six hundred dollars or so, he turned around and held it out. Jeff snatched it with the hand holding the lighter.

"My gun too." He quickly looked at the money, then shoved it in his pocket, before flicking the old zippo to life. "And don't touch that shotgun, or..." He didn't quite light the bottle, but he moved the flame closer to the improvised wick.

Pat moved along the counter with the ganger shuffling sideways on the other side to match him, not looking away from the eyes of his opponent. Reaching underneath he retrieved the pistol and handed it over butt first, Jeff flicking the lighter shut and putting it in his pocket on top of the cash before grabbing the gun. Pat noticed that he didn't actually check if it was still loaded.

Aiming the weapon, the neo-nazi smiled unpleasantly. "Fuck you," he said viciously, and pulled the trigger.

The click that sounded made everyone look, the other gang members seeming a little surprised, and the clientele watching very intently. Jeff himself seemed startled and glanced at his weapon.

The _second_ click was the sound of Pat's switchblade opening, and the sound that immediately followed _that_ was a scream of agony from Jeff as he dropped both the gun and the bottle and curled around his gun hand which now had a blade all the way through it. Pat dropped to the floor as one of the other gangers, after a shocked second or two, opened up on him with his AK. The rounds didn't make it through the half inch of steel the bar was lined with, of course, but the noise was deafening. Grabbing his shotgun and racking the slide, Pat eeled along the floor, stuck his head cautiously around the end of the bar furthest from the gunmen, aimed, and fired, removing both feet of the one shooting with a load of buckshot through the ankles.

Total chaos broke out instantly, the remaining E88 gangers all firing madly at the bar as he ducked back behind it, which led immediately to everyone _else_ in the place who was armed shooting at _them_.

Pat watched in the mirror over the back of the bar near the ceiling as two more of the gangers were cut down and the remaining three dived out the front door, still shooting back at them. Jeff was writhing around on the floor screaming, which lasted until Erwin stomped over and kicked him very precisely in the neck. There was a loud snap and he went quiet.

The man that Pat had de-feeted was still and silent, and the other two were so full of holes they clearly were also no longer among the living.

There was blood all over the place and a strong smell of gasoline from the shattered bottle. Pat sighed heavily. Cleaning all this up was going to be a pain in the ass.

"Well, fuck," he said grimly as he stood up, leaning over to look at the bodies on the floor. "We only just got all the bloodstains out from the last time."

"This city, man," one of the current crops of regulars said with a shrug. Everyone nodded wisely. He had a point.

Just as Pat was about to call the cops, who he had an understanding with, there was a terrific uproar from outside, more shooting going on from a number of guns which made it apparent that the group who'd come in had friends. The _other_ sounds made it clear that whoever else was involved was _not_ their friend, based on the screams and explosions. A loud screech rattled the glasses and made everyone stare at the door. Several strange whooshing sounds were followed by detonations and more screams, accompanied by gunfire and what sounded like at least one grenade.

"What in god's name…?" Pat said in shock.

"ABB?" someone queried.

"That's not Lung," Erwin stated with assurance, his eyes narrowed as he kept his weapon aimed at the doorway. "I..." Whatever he was about to say was lost as the door, for the third time that night, slammed open to reveal an E88 ganger, who looked absolutely terrified and was covered in blood. He dived into the bar, firing over his shoulder, then just as the door was closing a large orange fireball shot through it and hit him right in the middle of the back, causing everyone to duck.

He flew forward with a scream and hit the floor limply, sliding to a halt with smoke rising from an enormous charred patch on his back, and didn't move again.

Pat, along with his customers, gaped at him, then looked up as the door creaked open. They all froze as the hunched brownish-red figure of something that was very definitely _not_ human, judging by the odd skin texture, claws, horns, and red eyes looked at them, then at the body on the floor. He noticed absently that Erwin took a step back but for some reason _didn't_ aim his own monstrous handgun at the whatever-the-fuck-it-was as the thing took a step inside.

For the first time genuinely feeling worried, Pat watched as it looked quickly around, meeting his own eyes with a burning gaze that made him flinch. Then it scuttled forward and pounced on the downed Nazi, grabbing him by one ankle and pulling the body after it as it retreated.

Stopping half-way to the door, it turned its head almost completely around in a manner that made everyone watching feel a little unwell and croaked in a highly disturbing voice that sent shivers down backs, **"SHE has come. We serve HER will."**

Then it fucked off.

No one moved a muscle as four more of the bizarre creatures came in a moment later, retrieved the remaining E88 bodies, and left.

Nothing at all was said for some considerable time.

Eventually, Erwin put his gun away and scratched his head. "Huh. Didn't expect _that_."

Pat slowly turned his head to stare at his old acquaintance, before deliberately putting the phone down, pouring himself a large whiskey, downing the entire thing in one shot, shuddering, then sitting on his stool with a deep sigh.

He just _knew_ that things were going to get strange. Even for these parts. 

* * *

Sarah Pelham, the super-heroine Lady Photon, looked at her phone as it beeped. Picking it up she read the message on the screen. Her eyebrows rose, then she stood and went to find her husband and children. Neil was in the study poking around on their computer and turned to meet her gaze when she appeared in the doorway. "What's wrong, love?" he asked as he inspected her face.

"Director Piggot has requested that we go to the PRT building for an urgent meeting," she replied, glancing at her phone again. "Urgent, as in right now."

He looked back at the computer screen, on which she could see a PHO page and some images that seemed to show an armored figure firing a very substantial weapon. "Huh," he said thoughtfully. "I have a feeling I might know what that's about." Standing, his enormous figure nearly reached the ceiling. "The kids too?"

"Yes. Everyone. Apparently Carol and the others are already there." She shivered a little. A feeling of foreboding had come over her a while back and the message had only made it worse. Wondering if it was connected to the absolutely massive explosion that had shaken the house some hours ago, she turned to go upstairs.

Shortly both adults, and their son and daughter, were making their way to the PRT building in costume, Neil being carried by one of Crystal's force-fields and the other three flying under their own power. 

* * *

The Tinker known as Leet, or sometimes '_that asshole Leet_,' depending on who you asked, stared at his screen in shock for some time. Eventually he shouted, "Hey, dude, you won't _believe_ the message I just got!"

"What's so unbelievable about it?" his friend and partner Über shouted back, not looking up from his game.

"It's from Director Piggot."

There was a long pause, then his friend's head popped up above the back of the sofa, his eyes wide. "_What?_"

"Director Piggot. Honest. It checks out, it's definitely real."

"You're shitting me." The other young man jumped over the back of the sofa, game abandoned, and came over. He followed Leet's pointing finger to the screen. "Holy crap. You're certain it's her?"

"Yeah, it's using her own crypto signature and checks out on the PRT authentication site. It's her."

Über leaned closer. "A meeting under truce, and a guarantee that we'll be allowed to leave at any point? What the fuck, man?"

Leet shrugged helplessly. "I haven't got the faintest idea either. All she says is that she wants a meeting about a matter that concerns everyone, villain or hero."

"Jesus. An Endbringer or something?"

"You got me. Not a clue. But I doubt it's an _Endbringer_ or the sirens would be going off. Might have something to do with that fuck off big bang earlier."

His friend nodded slowly. The enormous explosion and flash had scared the shit out of both of them, and when they'd recovered they'd talked about going to have a look to see what had caused it, but the vast number of emergency services that were running hither and yon had made lying low seem a more sensible use of their time. Curiosity had its place and tonight didn't seem like one of those places it would be healthy.

And now this.

The night was getting stranger.

"Think we should go?" he asked.

Über hesitated, then replied, "I… don't know. I've never heard of the PRT _asking_ to meet a villain before. Even people like us. They're normally all squeaky clean and down on hobbies like ours."

"True. But that alone makes me think they're desperate or something. Might be a good idea, if this really is something that's going to bite us in the ass..." Leet shrugged while looking at his friend, who finally nodded.

"Fuck it. OK. I hope this isn't some sort of bizarre plot to arrest us without putting the effort in, though. We'd look like idiots falling for it."

They exchanged a glance, then went to find suitable low-key costumes. No point in pushing their luck, but at the same time, they _had_ to find out what the fuck was going on. 

* * *

Staring at the email, Faultline scratched her nose and thought hard. Then she got up and went to track down her team. She had no idea why the Director wanted to talk to them, and was somewhat hesitant about putting herself and her people within reach of the legendarily bad tempered woman, but her instincts were telling her that this was such an unusual move that there had to be an important reason for it. Her instincts were usually right on this sort of thing, which is why she and her colleagues were still alive.

And it might also shed light on why Elle had been staring at something that wasn't there for hours, while occasionally clapping her hands and giggling.

_That_ was getting _weird._

* * *

"You sure about this, Emily?" Renick asked, glancing at his superior. She read the tablet someone handed her, then shook her head and handed it back.

Turning to him, she replied, scowling, "No. I hate it. But I don't see any other choice. In light of what's happened and what we heard, this might be the only way. Especially since headquarters is _still_ ignoring us. They've dropped this in our lap, we have to figure it out for ourselves, and if they don't like it they can fucking well fix it later. But for now, we need to make sure no one else pushes the Hebert girl into acting against them. Because I prefer this city _not_ glowing in the dark and molten, thanks very much."

She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her tired eyes. Hours of reading steadily more worrying reports from all over the entire fucking _planet_ had taken their toll, and what she'd heard through Assault's microphone had only made it worse.

Much, much worse.

Wherever that young woman had been, it had left her with enough weaponry to fight world war three _and_ four single handed, along with the skill to actually _win_. If you could believe her own account she was probably the most highly skilled warrior on the face of the planet, entirely self taught, and fresh from a level of combat that had probably never been seen before. The most unbelievable thing Emily saw in all this was that she was as restrained as she appeared to be. So far, every incident except possibly the Winslow event had clearly been initiated by someone or something else, and even there one could argue it was merely delayed reaction to what Shadow Stalker and her minions had done. Yes, the girl had gone further than Emily liked, by eliminating Hookwolf after he was probably done for anyway, but considering what she _could_ have done…

And who it was, of course. The damned man should have been put down years ago in her own mind and she was certain that no one was going to raise a fuss about what happened. She certainly wasn't. And if anyone _did,_ they'd better be prepared for a fairly… enthusiastic… response.

The girl didn't _do_ '_flesh wound_.' Her entire approach appeared to be based on the principle of never leaving a job unfinished, which was _horrifying_ in its implications.

"You going to warn Kaiser?" Renick asked a moment later.

"No. He brought this on himself, and I'm not going to put the PRT between _her_ and him. Because I'm absolutely certain that she'd go right through us without breaking step, and right now she seems fairly neutral towards the PRT. I don't want to consider what would happen if she decided _we_ were valid targets." She looked at him, watching as he paled slightly. The amount of video they'd seen since Assault and Dauntless came back twenty minutes ago had made it abundantly clear how bad an idea that would be.

Being scared of one fifteen year old, or perhaps nineteen depending on how you counted, girl was not something she was proud of, but she wasn't stupid enough to pretend otherwise. Even _Lung_ couldn't do what that girl had done, and it would take him hours to ramp up the point he could get anywhere even close to that level of destruction.

They _still_ had no idea what the weapon that had erased Winslow, and Ellisburg for that matter, actually was. Nor whether it was the largest one in her armory.

Emily didn't want to find out what that would be by way of demonstration.

And that was all leaving aside all the other ramifications of possible interdimensional, and temporal, travel raised by her story. Never mind whatever the fuck her return journey had been and where it had gone. She was still trying not to think about the images Assault's helmet camera had recorded from the hologram widget the girl had shown them. Even at one remove, the recordings were so far past unnerving it needed a different word.

When, and if, this all ended, she was going to have to think about that, but here and now she needed to ensure that nothing horrible happened. Which was the reason for what she was arranging.

She had no doubt that when the higher echelons of the PRT finally got their asses in gear that she was going to get shouted at a lot, but that was a problem for future her. Present Emily had a much, much more immediate issue and as far as she was concerned the Chief Director could wait. Ideally forever, but she doubted she'd have that amount of good luck…

"What about Lung?"

"We can't find a way to contact him quickly," she sighed. "I checked every source I could think of. I've left word with a couple of more or less neutral ones to get in touch, but I doubt he will. And we have no idea about Coil, we don't even know more than his rough location at best. Lung is a much bigger problem that he is, though."

"And Skidmark's gang is a waste of time."

"Yes. That asshole would forget anything we told him in about five minutes even if he listened, and he probably wouldn't. Hopefully he'll have the sense to stay out of things, but even if he doesn't, I can't see him putting up much of a threat to her."

"What about to her father. By tomorrow her identity is going to be common knowledge, even assuming it isn't already, and if someone decides to go after him..."

She winced. That certainly wouldn't end well although she was sure it would end extremely rapidly and loudly. But at the same time, the Hebert man was clearly no pushover in his own right, and she'd heard a lot of rumors that the DWU had something of a reputation as people it was best to leave alone unless you liked taking your teeth home in your pocket. Hopefully that would keep things relatively non hostile until she could figure out a better method to spread the word that you left the Heberts alone or you died screaming.

This was only an interim solution, not in any way an ideal one, and likely to bite her in the ass in the near future, but it was all she could think of doing. With any luck she could arrange to talk to the girl and try to get her to _not_ react to any threat with a kiloton-level response.

Picking up one of the other tablets scattered across the table in the control room, her second in command studied the report on it. "Still no idea why Gallant is reacting like he is, I see."

"No. Panacea and the doctors think it's _possibly_ some sort of Master effect, but it's unlike anything they've ever seen before, it doesn't match anything on record, and no one can figure out how it's being done. They don't want to try waking him up again unless we can work out either how to stop whatever it is, or block it somehow. If that's even possible." She sighed. "And I just _know_ it'll be connected to Hebert somehow. I have no idea _how, _but it's far too much to think it's a coincidence that she comes back from wherever she's been and this just happened at the same time. There's a link, we just don't know what it is yet."

"There are strange reports coming from Thinkers all over the place, which are eerily similar to what Gallant said," he pointed out uneasily. "_Something_ has had a global effect on them." Both of them looked at the screen that had been displaying the Winslow crater and now showed the image of a tall figure in dark purple armor.

"Christ. This just gets better and better, doesn't it?" Emily sighed.

Both of them looked around as one of the junior PRT agents cleared his throat, sounding nervous. "What is it, Tim?" she asked waspishly.

"Ah… Rune just walked in off the street and said she wants to turn herself over and maybe join the Wards or something?" he said hesitantly, causing both of them to stare. "She said she has information on the E88. And..." He looked at the monitor. "Her."

Emily, after a long moment of wondering what was next, sighed and stood up. "Maybe we'll look back on this and laugh," she said acidly, "but that's going to take a _long_ time to happen." She followed the young man out of the room, shaking her head, as Renick watched her go them moved on to the next report, his expression troubled. 

* * *

"_What_ weird voice?" Lisa asked, staring at Brian. He looked at his other friends, then back at the blonde, who seemed to be having trouble believing them.

He'd tried, with Alec and Rachel's help, to explain what had been happening, but Lisa just didn't appear to get it. She was currently looking at him like she suspected this was either a joke she wasn't in on, or they'd all gone a bit nuts.

He couldn't honestly swear that the latter thing wasn't true, based on the last few hours. Even so, he sighed, then tried again.

Lisa's expression didn't get any less confused, which would have amused him under more normal circumstances, but at the moment was just another worrying aspect of whatever the hell was going on. 

* * *

Amy looked around as she, following the rest of her family, filed into the large room which had dozens of chairs around the largest table she'd ever seen in her life. At one end was an enormous screen mounted on the wall, while the table itself had multiple telephones, smaller monitors, and keyboards arranged down the middle. It looked like something from a movie, the sort of place you'd expect to see lots of men in uniforms sitting around discussing the end of the world or something of that nature.

Right now, it had Director Piggot, Deputy Director Renick, and half a dozen senior PRT people that she vaguely recognized at one end, with the entire local Protectorate contingent sitting next to them down one side. All the Wards, despite the late hour, it being nearly half past eleven at night by now, were next to _them._

On the other side were a number of people she paused to stare at for a moment, shocked. They were all separated from the PRT people by a few spaces, and from each other. Two were young men wearing masks, but otherwise in normal street clothes, that she recognized with amazement as Über and his partner Leet. Next to them, but at a distance, were a woman wearing a costume that seemed to be a cross between a long dress and some odd sort of nearly martial arts clothing, with a welder's helmet over her face. On either side of her were a young man who was bright orange and had a long tail, looking somewhat reptilian in nature, and minus any form of mask, and an older and considerably larger man with oddly translucent skin. Faultline, Newter, and Gregor the Snail, she realized, a local Parahuman Mercenary group.

Carol had also stopped and was staring at the occupants of the room, her face wearing a strange expression, but Mark put his hand on her shoulder and gently urged her to keep going. He was much more alert and present than was often the case, apparently having his depression take the night off. Vicky, in front of Amy, looked confused but followed her parents to a seating position a safe distance from the minor villains and the possibly slightly villainous but more or less neutral mercenaries. Amy just went along with it and sat next to her sister.

A moment later Aunt Sarah came in as well, accompanied by the rest of her family, paused to look around with a slight frown, then walked over and sat down beside Amy, the other three filling the next few chairs. Uncle Neil required two of them.

Everyone looked around, none of them other than the Director or Deputy Director appearing to know what was going on. Amy studied the faces, then reassessed that viewpoint. Assault and Dauntless both seemed subdued and worried, wearing similar expressions to the two PRT senior staff. Armsmaster appeared grim, Miss Militia was looking somewhat puzzled and also unusually quiet, while the rest of the adult Protectorate members just seemed to be wondering what was going on as much as she was.

The Wards all looked both tired and confused too. There was no sign of Shadow Stalker, Vista was yawning widely, Clockblocker was nodding slightly like he was about to fall asleep, and both Aegis and Kid Win were looking at everyone else with bemusement. She met the latter's eyes across the table and he shrugged.

Just as Carol opened her mouth to say something, doubtless in an acerbic manner, a PRT agent came in the door with a blonde girl of about sixteen following him. She was wearing street clothes and a generic mask that covered the upper half of her face, while the bits that could be seen appeared to convey a sense of worry and nervousness. The agent indicated a seat some distance from the Wards, which the girl took, while he sat next to her. Amy wondered who she was. She didn't seem happy to be here.

The door closed, one of the guards outside pulling it shut, then there was complete silence for a moment.

"What's all this about, Director?" Carol demanded a few seconds later. "What are _they_ doing here?" She pointed accusingly at Über and his friend, both of whom swallowed. "They're villains! And while Faultline and her people may not _quite_ be that, I'm not entirely pleased about..."

"Brandish, be quiet and listen," Director Piggot said harshly, causing Carol to snap her mouth shut and go red. "Keep your questions for later."

Opening her mouth again, Carol paused when her sister said her name with a note of warning, then grudgingly subsided. Amy relaxed a little, having been dreading the older woman's temper getting the better of her. She wanted to know what was going on and having Carol and the director get into yet another screaming match wouldn't help in that regard.

Director Piggot looked around the table, meeting the eyes of everyone present. Then she tapped a key on the keyboard in front of her. The vast monitor behind her lit up, displaying an image that Amy had to look at for some moments before she worked out what it was.

"I've asked all of you here to explain the current situation in Brockton Bay, a severe hazard that now exists in it, and what we're going to do about it." The heavy-set blonde woman looked around again. Her eyes rested on Armsmaster for a few moments longer than anyone else, Amy noticed with mild puzzlement.

"A few hours ago, this was Winslow High School," Piggot continued after a second or two, gesturing over her shoulder. "Now it is a crater nearly three hundred yards in diameter. No trace of the school itself remains, the entire place has been completely and comprehensively erased. That was what caused the explosion and flash all of you may have seen earlier this evening."

Everyone stared at the monitor, many of them in complete appalled shock. Amy was gaping. The entire _school? _How, why, and _who?_

"_What…?_" Carol tried to say something, appeared to run out of words, stopped, then tried again. "What in god's name did _that?_"

"She did." The image of the crater was replaced by one of someone wearing a very impressive set of dark purple power armor and holding some sort of enormous gun unlike anything Amy had seen before. It looked futuristic, like a form of Tinker Tech, but at the same time much more… complete… than such things usually did. More like it was a normal weapon that had seen hard use and been well cared for than a typical high tech one-off ray gun. She had no idea why she thought that, but it was what ran through her mind.

"We have tentatively given her the code name _Overkill_."

"That's… an unusual name," Über commented cautiously.

"It's more of a description," Director Piggot replied with a scowl and a sigh, looking at him. "An accurate one." She tapped another key, the image moving to the side to allow another one to come up, this one showing the same woman with her helmet off and her face exposed, smiling a little as she talked to an older man who bore a distinct family resemblance. Amy was shocked that they'd unmask a cape like that, as were almost everyone else around the table based on the sounds and expressions. "Her real name is Taylor Hebert. She doesn't care who knows that, she's approximately nineteen years old, although normal records will show fifteen, and she is the single most dangerous person you'll ever meet."

Everyone present stared at the images, then at the director, who almost looked amused in a dark way. "I am letting you all know this because it's _vitally_ important that you all realize that no, you _can't _take her. And if any of you _try_, I will _personally_ shoot you in the head." She looked around very slowly, her eyes hard. "That girl, and her father, are off limits. From us, from you, from anyone. We don't know her full capabilities and frankly I'll probably sleep better if I don't find out, but what we _do_ know will give me nightmares for years. And I'm including the Protectorate in that order. That means you, Armsmaster. You stay the fuck _away_ from Taylor Hebert, you hear me?" She glared at the Tinker, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Everyone was gaping at her, even Faultline's people.

There was complete silence for a moment, then everyone started talking at once, the noise making it impossible to hear anything useful. Über and Leet were trying to ask something, Carol was shouting at the top of her voice, Sarah was trying to both calm her down and ask her own questions, Faultline was standing up and leaning forward, Armsmaster seemed to be arguing, and most of the rest were either looking around with confused expressions or adding to the chaos. Assault and Dauntless were about the only ones on the Protectorate side who were just sitting there quietly.

Just as Amy was wondering how this was in any way helpful, while also holding her sister in her seat as the blonde had immediately wanted to join in, there was a horrifically loud bang. Silence instantly fell and everyone jerked around to gape at Director Piggot. The woman lowered the handgun she'd just fired into the ceiling, leaving a hole in the armored material covering it, and put it on the table. A small wisp of smoke rose from the barrel.

"_Shut. Up_." she said remarkably calmly although with an air of danger to her voice that made Amy swallow hard. "You will listen, and you will obey. Or we stand a very good chance of triggering the sort of disaster that would make Behemoth look like he wasn't really putting the effort in." Her glare raked the table from end to end. "Things have changed, very suddenly and potentially very badly. I don't like it any more than you do, but you're going to listen to me and listen well."

Total silence fell for a moment, then she hit another key. "So far, that we _know_ of, that girl has wiped out Ellisburg, which took her about an hour, done the same to Eagleton, killed the Three Blasphemies, _and_ Moord Nag, and about a dozen other S class threats all over the planet. All in less than a day. She can teleport with global range, giving her a Mover rating about as high as it goes. She can produce weapons that are capable of vaporizing a small city, so that's a Blaster rating, also as high as anything we've ever heard of. She has tech that can heal severe wounds. Her armor is at least tough enough to take multiple hits from Tinker Tech laser weapons without damage, she's been seen to detect _and_ catch a fifty caliber round _in her hand in mid flight, _and that's merely the information we _currently_ have on her."

Piggot looked around the ashen faces of everyone in the room. "The most important thing from _your_ point of view is that she is fully willing to immediately resort to lethal countermeasures when attacked. And has done so without hesitation."

Carol opened her mouth and the director held up a hand without even looking at her, causing the woman to close it again. "The E88 decided to attempt to recruit her earlier tonight. Kaiser sent Cricket, Hookwolf, and Victor, along with about two dozen normals, to persuade her to join them." She prodded the keyboard again, starting a video playing that everyone watched. "Her father took out two gang members faster than most of my troopers could, then blew Cricket away with the shotgun he confiscated from them. Victor shot at him, the girl caught the round, then destroyed the entire _building_ he was hiding in from three hundred yards away with a pair of rockets. _Then_ she got mad and wiped out Hookwolf, while her dad wrecked most of the remaining gangers." The video changed to show what had happened to the last of the E88 capes, making Amy's eyes widen, and several people to swear under their breaths.

"Kaiser, being an idiot, tried again with Krieg and Rune, and another group of normals armed with RPGs and laser guns he stole from Coil."

She pressed a key. Everyone watched. Amy felt ill.

"Total encounter time was about six seconds. Everyone other than Rune died in that time. Overkill's rules of engagement, as far as we can determine, are basically '_If you make me come over there you're dead_.' And she has the firepower and training to make that happen."

Not a single person present was able to say anything.

The director inspected them all. "We've got more information on her which explains at least some of how all this happened, but it's not currently something we're going to distribute. The point of this meeting is to inform all of you that as far as you're concerned, Overkill and her father are people you do not attack, you do not threaten, you do not interact with at all if possible. You don't give them funny looks in the street, you don't think nasty thoughts at them, you do everything you can to pretend they're not there. If you think you can take them, you're wrong, and all you'll do is make them angry. Trust me, you do _not_ want to make either of them angry, and you _especially_ don't want to make _Overkill_ angry. She does not do _capture._ She basically has two settings: _ignore_ you and _kill_ you."

Looking around at the people in the room, the woman added, "I fully expect that the E88 will cease to exist as a functioning gang by tomorrow. Kaiser made a very, very large mistake, one that will most likely be his last, and unless he's extremely lucky he's probably only got a few hours at most to live. While I don't like it, I'm aware that there's basically nothing I can do about it, and he brought it on himself." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the image that had come up after the videos stopped, that of the armored girl. "_That_ is basically a force of nature at the moment and anyone who gets between her and her goal is going to end up dead. Hopefully when she's finished with her current hobby we can talk to her, but right now I'm going to step aside and let her get on with it, because I'm _damn_ sure that if we get in her way she'll go right over us like a tank through a greenhouse."

After a very long and very complete silence, Carol finally broke it, somewhat loudly. "Director, you can't possibly mean that you're just going to sit there and let that… murderer… just keep on killing?"

Piggot fixed here with a glare that could have stripped paint from the wall. "One, murderer is technically probably inaccurate, as everything she's done has been essentially a legitimate action after someone _else_ initiated it. From the point of view of a military operation she's acting entirely consistently. And two, I mean exactly that, yes. Partly because she seems content to go after the worst scum in the city right now, but mainly because _we can't stop her_. What she did to Winslow _alone_ pretty much puts her into the category of _nuclear superpower_ all on her own. She left a crater that would have required approximately a ten _megaton_ explosion to create and did it without doing more than breaking a few windows and causing a couple of small fires outside the target zone. There is _nothing_ we have that can withstand that."

She brought up an image that looked like a satellite view of a much, much larger crater. "And what she did there was _tiny_. _This_ is what she did to Ellisburg. I know that city all too well. And now it's _gone_. Right down to the bedrock. _I do not want to have that happen to Brockton Bay!_"

Carol had gone an unhealthy gray color, and most of the others were staring fixedly at the screen, many of them looking terrified.

"We can't get hold of any of the Triumvirate, nor the Chief Director, for reasons I still don't know. This command is basically on its own for now with someone who's probably only barely less dangerous than an _Endbringer_ wandering around the city killing any Nazis stupid enough to shoot at her. _All_ we can do is stand back and wait for her to get bored with that." She looked around. "I know your abilities, and trust me, none of you, either individually or together, stand any chance of doing anything other than making this worse. So stay the hell out of it for all our sakes. She's calm enough as long as you don't threaten her, so if you meet her in the street, just smile and walk on by, you understand me?"

After a few seconds, Assault said, his voice tired, "Listen to Director Piggot. I've talked to that girl, and she absolutely fucking _terrifies_ me to the depths of my soul. The things she showed me…" He shook his head. "Leave her alone and she'll leave you alone. Attack her and the only thing to be thankful for is that it will be quick." Dauntless, next to him, nodded slowly.

"What about an attack from a long range?" Newter suggested a little nervously.

Director Piggot looked at him, then at the blonde girl with the mask that had come in last. "Rune can tell you how that went."

Everyone snapped their heads around to stare at her. "Rune?!" Aunt Sarah said in shock.

"Yeah," the girl replied quietly. "Or I was. She healed me and let me live if I told her where to find Kaiser. So I told her. And I'm not part of that gang any more." She visibly shivered. "I didn't like it anyway, Kaiser is a massive prick and Kreig is worse, but after..."

No one said anything and she resumed talking after a moment or two. "Director Piggot is right. You can't stop her. You've never seen anything like it. Krieg gave the order for his guys to kill her, she took them out so fast it was horrifying, then shot us down from over a _mile_ away with one shot. I still can't believe I lived through it. Just lucky, I guess." She half-shrugged, laughing under her breath. "She told me flat out that if I went against her she'd kill me. I believe her." Raising her eyes from the table, she looked around at them, her eyes haunted. "I don't know what she really is, I'm not even sure she's really human, but I know there's no way to win against her."

"There is almost always a hard counter to any Parahuman ability," Armsmaster put in, making her look at him. "Logically Overkill has a weak point that we should be able to locate and..."

"_No_." Director Piggot glared at him. "Even assuming that is true, which there certainly is no evidence of, you _will not_ experiment with trying to find a possibly nonexistent hole in the defenses of someone who could and _would_ kill you without hesitation. Not in my city. Preferably not on my _planet_, you hear me? To put it into terms you might understand, the risk versus reward equation is far, far over to the risk side."

He didn't look convinced, Amy noticed, but he nodded. She hoped that he'd pay attention to the director, since this entire situation was one that was making her want to hide under the bed.

The discussion went on for a little longer, and it was a very subdued set of people that finally left the PRT building. Amy watched as Faultline's group got into an SUV that picked them up and drove off without a backwards look, while Über and Leet left in the other direction in a heavily modified van of some sort. Über nodded politely to her as they went past, causing her to wave.

Dean was still unconscious in the PRT medical center, and the doctors were going to monitor him to see what happened. She still couldn't even work out what had caused him to collapse but the timing, and what he'd said, seemed suspicious. Amy wasn't sure if it _was_ connected to the Hebert girl, and she also didn't know if her parents or sister had worked it out, but it was yet another thing that worried her.

Vicky had wanted to stay with him but the doctors had kicked her out, telling her she could visit the next day but she needed sleep herself. It had taken Amy a while to convince her, but eventually the blonde nodded and followed, looking upset and worried too.

Once Carol had retrieved the car, they got in and headed home, with the Pelhams flying overhead. She was sure that the adults were going to spend half the night arguing about what they'd learned at the PRT building but for now she was exhausted and just wanted to sleep and forget about purple-armored girls of doom who killed Nazis like most people ate Skittles.

No one said much on the journey. 

* * *

Staring in shock at the monitor Max swore vehemently under his breath. Krieg was definitely dead as far as he could tell and Rune presumably was too. That fucking Tinker had taken out _five_ capes in two interactions, as well as close to two dozen of his cannon fodder. And she'd walked off without a scratch.

That was unacceptable. The first time had been bad enough, but to have it happen a second time…?

No. He was taking the gloves off. Fuck her. She wanted to play hardball, he could play hardball.

Turning to his address book he started looking through it for the right phone number. He didn't keep this sort of record in an electronic form just in case. Paper was safer, it was hack proof. Eventually he found what he was looking for and picked up the phone.

The lights went out about two seconds into dialing, then the phone itself went dead.

As the emergency lighting came on, he looked around, confused, then listened carefully.

Why could he hear a chainsaw?


	13. DOOMed XII: Actionable Intelligence

_ A little interlude to mark the release of DOOM Eternal. Just for fun :) _

* * *

Dinah lay in bed plotting.

All the excitement outside had, after a couple more loud explosions although nothing on the scale of that first one, died away a while ago. Her parents had spend some time on the phone to Uncle Roy, then more time on the internet and watching the TV in an attempt to figure out what was going on. Everyone seemed very confused, from what she could see, and scared too.

At one point, when she'd opened the window and stuck her head out, she could have _sworn_ she heard a chainsaw in the distance, and someone laughing in a manner that was… disturbing. Her mother had quickly pulled her back inside, closed the window, and told her it wasn't safe outside.

Which was generally true in Brockton Bay all the time, so it wasn't like she wasn't used to it.

She'd been sent to bed at that point, as it was very late and only the general chaos had allowed her to be up this long to begin with. She rather thought that her parents had basically forgotten about her for a while as they were so caught up in whatever was happening and why.

Dinah actually had a pretty shrewd idea about the cause of all this. Much more so than they did, and she suspected much more so than _most_ people did.

Her ability seemed to have had a really unpleasant shock a few days ago, and had been _extremely_ helpful ever since. Like it had seen something it didn't enjoy and was more or less hiding while being as cooperative as possible in the hopes that whatever was coming would leave it alone. The best part was that the pain had stopped completely, which left her in a far better mood than she'd been in since that awful moment she'd gained this peculiar power. The power she couldn't get her parents to take seriously, and the one that had helpfully told her was going to lead to some terrible consequences for her _and_ them at some point in the near future.

Of course, that was the _old_ future.

The _new_ future was _much_ more interesting, and led to some interesting if slightly scary places if she was careful.

Her power had told her _that_ too, and had only needed a little persuasion to become really remarkably open about all _sorts_ of useful things to know. She'd only had to threaten to let _Her_ know about it being annoying twice before it screamed and hid again.

The girl didn't know, exactly, who _She_ was, but she knew _She_ was someone that whatever made powers was terrified of, based on her own one. And because of _Her_ Dinah had a number of options that she'd not had before, ones that would save her family and her as well.

This made her very happy, and the thought of what was going to happen to a certain person she'd never met and never wanted to meet made her even happier. In a very wrong way, she thought with a tiny dark grin into the dimness of her bedroom.

"100% chance of a fucker getting fucked," she whispered to herself, rolling her head to the side so she could see the green numbers on her alarm clock.

Two thirty in the morning. She'd heard her mother and father go to bed an hour and a half ago, and all sounds of movement had stopped half an hour or so later after some faint talking. Even through the wall and across the hallway, they'd sounded worried, which she was upset about, but she was sure that trying to explain would only cause them to either look at her like she was nuts, or cause even more trouble if they _believed_ her.

Her power, when she poked it, agreed. Somewhat reluctantly before it hid again.

Slightly amused, she kept waiting until the numbers clicked over to 03:00, then very quietly indeed slipped out of bed and got dressed in warm clothing. Extremely carefully she opened her bedroom door, having arranged a few extra items of clothing under the covers, crept out onto the landing, closed it with a wince at the tiny sound it produced, then tip-toed down the hallway to the stairs. Avoiding the fourth one from the bottom which creaked she made it to the first floor, and a few minutes later was outside in the back yard.

Having waited for a little while to make sure her parents didn't wake up and notice she was missing, she silently asked a few specific questions of her ability, smiled grimly, and headed for the rear of their large yard. With the aid of a small flashlight she found the place she could climb the fence, dropped into the service alley on the other side, and trotted off into the oddly quiet city.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, having avoided a number of other people and two police cars which were driving slowly along while the occupants kept a careful eye on the surroundings of the upscale neighborhood she lived in, she reached the point her power told her was right. It didn't seem happy to do so, but she insisted, and it complied with a sort of a silent whimper.

Dinah was having a lot more fun than she'd expected, and finding that she could twist a percentage chance of something happening into an effective method to avoid certain things while locating others was very interesting. And useful.

When she finally got to the correct spot, which was in a particularly dark part of the city on the boundary between her own neighborhood and where things started to get far less well maintained, she stopped and looked around.

Listening carefully, she could hear nothing other than the background sounds of the city, which included intermittent gunshots far in the distance, over the faint noises of cars and what nightlife there was at this hour. Nothing unusual, really.

She prodded her ability with a couple of leading questions, nodded, and turned her head.

"I know you're there," she said quietly into the blackness behind the garage she'd snuck down the side of.

There was no answer, but after a moment she heard a faint scraping sound.

"SHE would approve."

The pause this time was longer, but the silence was finally broken by a raspy voice that replied, **"We serve HER will."**

"I know," Dinah said.

**"You are not HER."**

"No. I am not HER."

Another pause was followed by the voice saying, **"SHE is busy. SHE is _angry_."**

"I know something that would make HER even angrier. I can tell you where it is."

After a couple of seconds, another voice, equally disturbing but different, said, **"Do _you_ serve HER will?"**

Dinah thought quickly, then replied, "In a way. I have information SHE would be angry about. Maybe… _you_ could do something about it? SHE is very busy, of course."

**"SHE is the Doom Queen."**

"Even so, she must have more important things to do, right? There's no point in her doing everything herself."

**"SHE can do anything, for SHE is the One."**

Dinah nodded, smiling a little. "I know that too. All I'm saying is that I know about something SHE would want to do something about, but it's not important enough for HER to waste her valuable time on since you, who serve HER will, could do it for her. That would make HER happy, right? Or less angry, anyway. Which has to be good. And she'd be pleased with you."

A very long silence followed, with only a slight almost inaudible muttering coming from somewhere, in a language that she was sure she'd never heard before. Her power was lurking in the back of her mind basically staring at her in horror, but she ignored it. Eventually, the first voice spoke again.

**"We serve HER will. You serve HER will. Speak."**

Dinah did. Concisely and accurately, using all the information she'd managed to derive about a specific threat that had been heading in her direction, with a large number of horrific possible outcomes she'd seen no way out of until recently.

And the whole time she was smiling nastily.

"That's it. That's everything I know. It should be enough for you guys, I hope."

**"We will execute HER will."** The voice was a third one, much deeper than the other two, and it sounded almost amused in a pretty terrifying way.

The girl nodded, feeling an inner glee.

"Thanks. Oh, one other thing. Can you give him a message first?"

A moment or two passed then the deep voice replied, **"Speak your message."**

She said a few words.

Then she lifted a hand in a wave to the darkness, turned, and headed home. A few seconds of faint sounds which would have caused any witness to feel very worried occurred, then the area was completely silent once more.

* * *

Climbing back into bed, shivering a little from the chill outside, Dinah relaxed into the soft mattress and the warmth of the blankets, her lips slightly upcurved in what was almost an evil smirk. Rolling over she put her hand under her cheek and closed her eyes, mumbling something to herself with a tiny giggle. Moments later she was asleep, feeling more contented than she had done for weeks.

* * *

Thomas jerked upright in his bed, staring wildly around with his heart hammering. _Something_ had woken him from yet another horrible dream, and he was sweating like he'd run a marathon.

There was a strange sound coming from somewhere, far too close for comfort, and he could smell something strange. And what was that peculiar reddish light he could just make out? He turned his head to the side, then nearly fainted.

The half dozen dully glowing pairs of what he gradually realized were _eyes_ looked back at him. One set blinked, then another, as he tried to remember how to breathe.

**"We serve HER will,"** a ghastly voice said out of the dark of his underground and totally impenetrable armored bunker. **"Dinah Alcott sends her regards and says fuck you,"** it added in a tone of mild delight.

He _nearly_ managed to reach his gun in time, not that it would have helped all that much.


	14. Omake - Taking A Bite

**Omake - Taking A Bite Out Of The Big Apple**

* * *

_This was sparked by a review on Sufficient Velocity, and I was at a loose end, so... ;)_

* * *

The city-wide screaming of the invading alien army caused by the destruction of the huge flying armored sky whale echoed around the streets, making millions of people cower in their homes and businesses. The six heroes standing in a circle on a destroyed road, surrounded by wreckage and smoke, looked up and around at the enemy who had poured out of the portal high above the Stark tower.

Moments later, a fresh, much larger wave of attackers began to flow from wherever the portal led, while their compatriots already present hooted and screamed anew. Looking up, the Black Widow's eyes widened as she spotted more of the sky whales in the midst of a group of the alien's flying sled things so numerous they looked like angry wasps spewing out of a disturbed nest.

As she was about to call her team's attention to this, a flicker of pink light caught her notice, making her quickly look, then stare as a tall armored figure strode out of what seemed to be a dark pink mist some two hundred yards away, between a burning bus and a pile of masonry that had fallen from the front of a building. The new arrival, who for some reason gave Natasha the impression of being angry to a level that the Hulk himself would be hard-pressed to match, looked around, then up, before turning and heading towards them. Their armor was a matte purple in color, looked at least as high tech as Iron Man's, but somehow appeared far, far more lethal.

Which was worrying, knowing how dangerous Tony himself was when he was pushed.

Her companions all became aware of the armored figure and also watched as it approached. Unfortunately, so did the aliens, one of their aircraft with two attackers on it diving towards the striding armored person. Before anyone could say anything, brilliant energy bolts roared out of the thing's weapon mounts, striking the armored person squarely in the back.

They stopped. Apparently entirely unharmed, although the road surface around them was now deeply scarred from the bolts that had missed on either side.

The person, whoever it was, was now radiating rage that was almost literally visible, and turned to look up at the sled as it zipped overhead. A moment later they were holding a very large weapon of entirely unfamiliar design, which was aimed and fired in a blur of motion. The energy blast that came out of the thing dwarfed that of the sled, and the result when it scored a direct hit was the complete annihilation of the alien craft, only a couple of small burning fragments falling out of the blue-white fireball that formed and vanished in the blink of an eye.

None of the Avengers said a thing, even Tony's normal quips silenced, at the sheer _rage_ that seemed to come from their visitor, who resumed walking towards them, the weapon held ready. The sound of the blast was still echoing around the battlefield even as the attackers seemed to pause and assess the implications of a new party entering the fight.

Natasha glanced at Clint, who looked back with an expression of confusion and apprehension. Steve was standing in front of them all and she could almost feel him trying to work out what to do, while Thor was spinning his hammer in a way that wasn't quite ready to fling it but could become that almost instantly. Tony and even the Hulk were just staring, the latter looking…

She checked again.

Yep. He was actually looking pensive. Which was a _very_ odd expression to see on the face of an eight foot talk rage monster…

"You. With the shield. Where the _fuck_ am I?" the armored person said when she, as the voice showed it to be, stopped in front of them, pointing at Steve.

"I'm sorry?" he asked, a note of definite bewilderment apparent. Natasha sympathized, she had no idea what was going on either.

Another sled came in on a strafing run and the armored woman raised her gun and fired it over her shoulder without even looking, scoring somehow another direct hit. Half a dozen more were circling above them, while at least two of the sky whales were heading down towards them along with possibly _hundreds_ more of the alien aircraft. Natasha looked upwards nervously, feeling this was hardly the time to be giving directions, but on the other hand this woman seemed to be fairly effective at taking out the enemy.

"Where is this?" the woman demanded, waving a hand around at the general vicinity. "What city. Country. Planet, even. Come on, I don't have all day, I'm not in the mood for playing games."

"We're… in New York," Steve replied, sounding confused and wary.

"OK. Fine. New York." She looked around, then shook her head. "Really messy, New York. Whatever, not my problem. Planet? I don't recognize any of you, so this isn't Earth Bet. Aleph, maybe?"

Everyone exchanged glances. "Earth… Bet?" Tony asked quizzically. "What do you..."

He was interrupted by four alien sleds coming in on an attack run, strafing towards them down the street, and causing everyone to take cover.

"WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!" the armored woman roared, her voice making things vibrate for hundreds of feet, as she turned around and took aim. The entire team watched in amazement as she picked off all four in under a second with one shot each, then took out three more that were much higher and further away. "That's better," she added when the detonations ended, turning back. "Right. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Earth Bet. Heard of it?"

"Ah..." Steve shook his head. She sighed.

"Earth Aleph?"

"No?" Natasha was listening in a sort of disbelief mixed with a variant of battle fatigue, and exacerbated by a headache from the constant sound of explosions in the distance and the enormous booms from this bizarre woman's own weapon. She looked at Clint again, who shrugged, his bow ready in his hands for all the good it was likely to do.

"Fuck." The armored woman casually shot a couple more of the sleds down over their heads, again without seeming to pay much attention to it. "This is getting annoying. First those tentacled things with the eyes who don't know what a straight line _is_ and now some fucked up version of New York that looks like it would actually be improved if Behemoth visited again," she muttered almost under her breath. No one had an answer for that, but it didn't seem she wanted one. "You do realize that I'm going to find you and we're going to have words, I hope," she added almost conversationally, looking slightly to the side.

They all looked despite themselves.

No one was there.

When they looked back, the mystery woman was examining them. "Hmm. A Tinker, maybe a Case 53, and a couple of Brutes, maybe? Plus the guy with the bow and the girl with the little gun. Weird." She shrugged. "Again, not my problem. Where are the rest of your Capes?"

"What are… Capes?" Tony asked curiously, although he was keeping an eye on the skies where the aliens were still circling, even though they seemed to be keeping a distance for the moment for some reason.

She gestured at them. "Like you. Parahumans, or whatever you lot call it. People with powers."

"It's just us," Steve replied, looking back at the rest of the team.

She looked up at the portal and the growing cloud of sleds and what was now _four_ sky whales, all milling about several thousand feet above them. Natasha could almost sense the attackers building up for an assault that was going to make the last one look like just a minor scuffle. "You're going to need a bigger team," the woman said casually as she returned her attention to them. "So you've never heard of Earth Bet, or Aleph, then?"

"No," Steve said, still looking up as he'd followed her eyes when she'd done the same, and now having a very worried expression visible under his mask. "Sorry."

"Balls. This is really getting fucking tedious." The woman turned and headed back towards the pink mist that was still hanging in space down the street. "Fucking idiotic planets that don't even have proper Parahumans," she grumbled as she stomped off. "At least this one isn't full of giant robot kangaroos. That was just _stupid_."

Half-raising a hand, Steve watched as she walked away, apparently not even slightly concerned about the destruction surrounding her and the ongoing battle, even though the latter had paused for some bizarre reason. Natasha looked at her team mates, then up at the sky where the alien horde was starting what she feared would be an overwhelming attack. "Oh, hell," she whispered as she stared in horror at the cloud of descending alien warriors that darkened the sky.

A rain of energy bolts poured downwards, causing them all, even the Hulk, to run for any cover they could find. It was only when the incoming fire actually hit that they realized with some shock that it was _all_ aimed at the armored woman, who vanished into the middle of a vast firestorm of blue-white explosions and flying debris, the whole thing giving the impression that a small nuke had gone off.

And it _kept_ going off, for second after second, while everyone tried to block out the glare and incredible sound of a continuous barrage of energy. Natasha had her hands over her ears and was squinting in horrified amazement as the aliens fired, and fired, and fired, a slowly rotating funnel formation made up of every single attack sled all aimed at the exact same point. A couple of miles above them she could see the portal itself still spewing more attackers, while the flock of sky whales, made small by distance, circled under that. The blue-white beam from the machine keeping the aperture open still streamed upwards from the top of Tony's building.

Eventually, after what must have been at least fifteen seconds of fire intense enough to blow an enormous glowing crater in what used to be the road and the nearby buildings, the shooting finally stopped. Glowing molten rock, steel, and concrete sluggishly flowed outwards from the blast zone while the radiated heat had burned the paint completely off every wrecked vehicle within a hundred yards, set fire to debris all over the place, and was scorchingly hot on their faces even here.

**"OK, _NOW_ I'M _REALLY FUCKING PISSED!_"**

The roar of pure fury came from inside the crater, causing everyone to gape.

**"ALL I WANT TO DO IS GET HOME AND HAVE A PIZZA WITH MY DAD! IS THAT TOO FUCKING MUCH TO ASK? DO I HAVE TO KILL EVERYTHING IN THE ENTIRE GODDAMN MULTIVERSE BEFORE I CAN DO THAT? BECAUSE I FUCKING WILL! DO NOT PUSH ME, I AM NOT IN THE FUCKING MOOD FOR FUCKING PLAYING AROUND!"**

Still intact windows for a quarter of a mile shattered at the scream of rage, the entire city fell silent, and the Hulk made a tiny sound that was almost gleeful. Natasha and the rest just watched in shock as an _enormous_ green crackling fireball lifted into the air from the crater, tongues of greenish energy stabbing out from it in all directions, each of them apparently seeking out one of the enemy and striking them with devastating effect. Every time this happened, the aliens literally exploded, and the energy discharges could go through several of them in a row without effort.

"Jesus _Christ!_" Tony yipped in horror, the only one of them who was even able to say anything at all, as the massive energy ball roared upwards towards the main grouping of aircraft, who sensible took one look at it and wheeled about, accelerating as hard as they could away from the thing.

It didn't help.

Hundreds of them were taken out in under a second merely by the green-white lightning-like discharges, but this was utterly dwarfed by the phenomenal explosion that occurred when the fireball reached the altitude the sky whales were circling at. The entire sky went totally white with a faint green tint to it, making absolutely everyone witnessing the event close their eyes as their vision vanished in the glare. Even through closed eyes, and in the case of Natasha, through her hands which she'd put over the latter, the light was incredible. She was certain that she could actually see the bones in her hands for that matter.

The light dimmed, then the sound hit.

When the shockwave passed, they lay there where they'd been blown by a noise like an angry god slamming books the size of mountains together. All the remaining glass in downtown Manhattan fell out of windows, tinkling to the ground.

Natasha, groaning, slowly rolled over, blinked a few times, and looked up.

Then she rubbed them and looked again.

Every single alien attacker was gone. There wasn't a trace of anything up there other than the portal and a dimming greenish afterglow.

Several seconds later, she swore faintly in Russian and sat up, still staring at the sky.

**"YEAH, I MEANT IT!"** The voice from the crater was furiously triumphant. **"IN FACT, I'LL GIVE YOU A COUPLE MORE FOR GOOD LUCK! ENJOY THEM!"** Two more fireballs, even larger than the first one, shot upwards with a sound like a volcano exploding, moving much quicker than previously, and disappeared one after another through the portal seconds later. A momentarily brighter than the sun light flared through it, before it winked out as if it was a balloon popping. The beam of energy keeping it open flickered, twisted, and went out, while from the top of the Stark building there was a faint flash before a cloud of oddly colored smoke appeared.

Silence, only broken by settling masonry and the crackling of fires, along with a steady ticking sound from cooling lava, fell across the entire area.

Then a hand in purple armor appeared over the rim of the still largely molten crater, before the woman climbed out, stood up, and brushed herself down, little bits of solidified metal and rock dropping to the ground. "Fucking amateurs," she said loudly enough to hear at their distance. "Everywhere I go, some fuckwit has to start things. Assholes the lot of them."

Looking in their direction, she shook her head, called, "I'm not cleaning this up, I've got too many other things to do," then turned and walked around the crater and into the pink mist before any of them could think to do anything to stop her.

The mist vanished.

There was no sign of her left, other than footprints.

Eventually, Clint asked, "Can anyone tell me what just happened?"

A few seconds later they heard a strange noise, all exchanged a glance, then as one turned to stare at the Hulk, who was lying on the ground on his back laughing his giant green ass off.

* * *

Fury stared at Agent Hill. "Could you repeat that?"

She looked at her notes, then back at him. "Doctor Selvig said a pink mist appeared next to the portal machine, which had apparently burned out due to feedback from whatever it was that happened to the portal itself, and an arm covered in purple armor came out of it, grabbed the entire thing, and stole it. Along with the Tessaract, and his laptop with all his data on."

Blinking a couple of times, Nick tried to understand what that meant.

"It's gone, sir. So is the scepter. And Loki was found half-beaten to death in Stark's penthouse. Someone worked him over really well and very professionally."

Rubbing his brow in resignation, Fury sighed. "I fucking _hate_ this job sometimes," he growled.

Both of them turned around as another agent opened the door. "Sir?"

"What is it?" he snapped.

"Ah… Agent Coulson. He's… healed?"

They looked at each other. "_How?"_ Fury shouted.

The other agent shrugged helplessly. "All I know is that a purple arm came out of a pink mist with some sort of injector in it, according to the doctors. Now he's fine. Not happy, but fine. Apparently it was quite painful."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, what the hell is going _on?_" Fury shouted in confused rage. The world had stopped making what little sense it had done up to now and it was pretty bad even then.

* * *

The pink mist formed, and Taylor stepped through. She looked around, then swore loudly. The ground under her feet rippled and fumed, but she ignored that as she stomped towards the only living being she could see, a large violet male humanoid who was sitting on a throne-like stone chair gaping at her.

"You. Where the _fuck_ am I?" she said, pointing at him as she stopped ten feet away.

His expression turned from puzzlement to anger, and he stood, looking down at her.

She looked back, feeling annoyed. Yep, yet another asshole who was going to get in the way. She could practically feel it. Pulling out her plasma rifle, she waited.

* * *

_Half an hour after the pink mist vanished, it came back. A procession of bizarre creatures poured out of it, only pausing for a few seconds to look around at the miles-wide slick glass plain that stretched away on all sides, before trouping across it to the other side where they disappeared once more._

_The last one through paused and looked back, its face forming into what could almost be thought of as a smile. _

_"_**_SHE is the DOOM QUEEN. We serve HER will. You did not."_**

_Then it went into the mist, which faded from view for the last time._


	15. DOOMed XIII: Towering RAGE of DOOM

Taylor looked up at the building in front of them, then glanced at her father, who was also examining it.

"Medhall, huh?"

"So the girl said." He shook his head. "Pity. They're a major employer in the city, but there have been rumors for years that they have backing from sources overseas that are less than entirely legitimate. And it would explain some of the stranger things about where the Empire gets its drugs from. I've heard from more than one place that they actually distribute more narcotics than the Merchants do, but in much higher purity and for a lot more money." He shrugged a little. "From what I've been told by at least one person, they might actually be _supplying_ the Merchants. Not that Skidmark knows, of course."

"I'd have thought the Nazi ideal would frown on narcotic use," she commented wryly.

"Hah. They _say_ that but I highly doubt they actually _believe_ it. And, of course, money is money," he chuckled. "Got to cost a lot, trying to get the Fourth Reich off the ground."

Grinning to herself, she pulled out a small explosive charge and handed it to him, keeping another for her own use. "I think we should make sure they fail. I don't like Nazis."

"It does run in the family, my dear," he said with a vicious grin of his own, taking it from her without hesitation. "I'll get the phone lines, you get the power feeds?"

"Sounds good."

"They'll have at least one backup," he warned.

"Yep. Already located it. Generator in that sub-building to the side there, above the parking garage." She pointed to where her armor's systems had traced the wiring from the tall building they were scouting out. "Looks like the main power distribution node too, so I can get both at once. All they'll have is emergency lights, with any luck."

"I expect there will be a lot of armed idiots in there, as well as possibly some of the researchers. It's late, most of the workers will have gone home, but Anders has the penthouse on top and several of the next floors are inhabited too."

"That won't be a problem," she assured him grimly.

"Didn't think so," he responded, tossing the charge in his hand and catching it again. "Takes me back, all this."

"Mom would be sad she's missing it."

"She'd already be in there shooting Nazis," he snickered, before turning and walking off into the darkness, his shotgun over his shoulder, the leather trench coat he'd gone back to the car to retrieve flapping around his ankles with the pockets full of ammo. She looked after him with a fond smile, feeling happiness that she'd not only made it home but reconnected with her dad over a mutual hobby, then went about her business.

Ten minutes later they regrouped in another location across wide plaza outside the front of the Medhall Tower, about two hundred feet from the main entrance. Taylor produced the detonator and flicked the power switch with her thumb, causing the display to light up and a self test to run, finishing a moment later with a contented beep. "All set. I'm jamming their radio and cellphones as well, so they're not going to be talking to each other when we go in."

Her father looked up the thirty-nine stories to the top of the building, where a number of lit windows could be made out on the last three floors. "What rules of engagement are you using?" he asked almost idly, thumbing shells into his shotgun, a mix of deer slugs and buckshot.

"If it shoots at me, I shoot back," she replied immediately.

"Fair enough. Good plan. Nice and simple."

"I like it."

"And when we find the capes?"

She turned and looked at him, knowing he could barely make out her toothy grin through her faceplate. He grinned back.

"That's about what I thought," he said.

"Any problems with it?"

Lifting the gun, he peered along the barrel, then flicked the safety off. "No. To be honest, someone should have done this a long time ago. I'm proud it's you."

She put her arm over his shoulders. "And I'm so pleased I'm home again. I was getting _very_ irritated by the end there." Releasing him, she pulled out half a dozen heal packs and gave them to him. "Just in case. They sting a bit."

Her father took them and put them into a free pocket without a word.

"Got a spare plasma rifle too," she added, producing it along with some power cells. The cells went into other pockets, and he slung the energy gun over his back after inspecting it briefly. In truth, she had quite a few spare weapons, having looted the Mars base to the bedrock on her way out the door that last time, and there wasn't much left in the ARC facility either.

At some point she might go back and look around for more, she mused, along with looking around all the other bizarre places she'd visited on the way home, but that could wait. For now, they had something more important to do. And she was looking forward to sleeping in her own bed in the first time in far, far longer than she cared to think about. After that, and some time to relax, she could look into dealing with all the other things on the list, which was a very, very _long_ list at this point...

"Thanks. You always did bring me thoughtful presents, Taylor," he said with a smile.

Nodding with a sense of satisfaction overlaying the constant deep anger that burned deep inside, she turned to the building again and raised the detonator in her hand. "Knock knock, Mr Anders," she said, flipping up the protective cover and pressing the button under it with her thumb.

Three muffled thumps sounded from different places around the building, and all the lights went out.

"Always important to begin with a quip," her father snickered. "It's traditional."

"Indeed," she replied, waving at their target. "Age before beauty."

"Thank you," he responded, looking darkly amused, "But you're the one in armor, and therefore the designated bullet sponge. _You_ go first."

"It's always me," she sighed, although she was smiling, as she headed towards the main door, pulling out her combat chainsaw, while he followed chuckling to himself. It seemed like the ideal tool for the job.

It was, of course, and they went through the remains of the doors without really breaking step.

* * *

"What the fuck was _that?_" A faint _whoomph!_ sound made everything in the guard station rattle slightly, and the lights flickered and died. Alvin looked up, then around at the security monitors and status displays. The screen displaying the condition of the primary and backup power feeds to the building was blinking red icons he'd never seen before, all the readings were at zero, and the pair of monitors that _should_ have been showing live views from the cameras in the power room and comms rooms simply displayed '_Signal Lost_' on a blue background. "Power's out."

"Yeah, genius, I can see _that_ for myself," his colleague Bill snapped as he prodded keys on the keyboard in front of the main computer as fast as he could. "The lack of lights is something of a hint."

"Don't get nasty," Alvin complained. "You always get nasty."

"Because you're an idiot who won't _shut up_," Bill growled. "Fuck. Main power down, backup generator isn't kicking in, and we're on batteries." He glanced up as the dim emergency lighting came on with a faint click. "All the phone lines are out too," he added, bringing up another screen of dire information. "And internal lines are shot."

"Maybe it was a power surge or something like that?"

"No, it's deliberate, there's no way everything would go out at the same time by accident," Bill replied, giving up on the computer, which was basically telling him that nothing worked. "Someone's taken out the entire comms room, the three phase feed to the building, _and_ the backup generator." Picking up the compact walkie-talkie at his elbow he turned the volume up, then keyed up the transmitter. "Lower guard station to all security. Report status." When he released the button, both of them waited. There was no response.

He tried a couple of times, then changed channels and repeated the exercise, with similar results. Pressing the squelch defeat control produced a horrible whistle, which made them wince and him quickly let go of it. "It's being jammed. We're definitely being attacked."

"Who by?"

Slowly, Bill turned his head to fix a glare on the other guard. "How the hell would I know _that?"_ he asked acidly as he got up and headed for the old fashioned telephone hanging on the opposite wall. It was appropriately bright red. He picked up the handset, put it to his ear, then swore. "This is dead too. Fuck. Someone knows their stuff."

"Why would someone attack this place?" Alvin asked as he opened the cabinet on the side wall and pulled out his highly illegal M16, along with half a dozen magazines.

Bill joined him and did the same, both of them loading the guns and putting spare mags in their pockets. Alvin also took a couple of frag grenades, offering Bill one, who looked at his companion as if he thought he was insane. Which he did.

"Well, let's think it through, OK?" Bill sighed. "We're in the largest, richest, pharmaceutical company in the entire state, with enough drugs in the labs to make the fucking Merchants look like they're amateurs. And about half a billion dollars worth of technology, never mind all the Tinker stuff they've got upstairs."

"Oh." Alvin nodded. "I get it." He frowned a little. "But they should know that Kaiser will kill them all..."

Bill put his hand on his face. "Jesus." Turning to face the other man, he glared at him. "How long have you been here?"

"Seven years?" Alvin thought for a moment. "No. Eight."

"And in all that time, haven't you ever thought about the fact that _no one is supposed to know that Medhall is run by the E88?_"

Alvin looked as if the light had dawned. "Oh! Right. So, no one will know that Kaiser will kill them and they think they can just walk in and clean us out?"

Flicking him sharply on the forehead, Bill nodded. "Exactly. It's a _secret_. And we're probably about to get hit by some asshole who's looking for drugs and tech. Might even be ABB, or some other subhumans. So we need to hold them off until reinforcements get down here. With all the power out the elevators don't work, which means we're on our own for at least a few minutes. Go check the external cameras, there's probably about a dozen people headed our way." He turned back to the armory and dug out a pistol and some ammunition, working on the basis it was better to have too much than not enough.

As he was putting a webbing vest on to hold everything, Alvin said from behind him, "I can only see two people out there."

"Two?"

"Yeah. Some older guy in a long leather coat, and..."

Bill frowned as his companion's voice trailed off. "And?" he queried, turning around.

"And someone in the most serious power armor I've ever _seen_," Alvin replied, his voice quavering a little as he stepped back from the monitor bank and pointed. "_Angry_ power armor."

Moving to stand next to Alvin, Bill stared at the image of two people walking towards the main door. The other man was right.

It was the angriest power armor he'd ever seen either. And he didn't have the faintest idea why he thought that.

Mind you, the fucking enormous chainsaw the armored figure was holding as they reached the door did add to that impression. As did the way the door simply collapsed under the thing's blade in a shower of sparks. "Fuck me," he shouted, the sound of the chainsaw suddenly very loud and only forty feet away in the main lobby. Cocking his M16, he dived for the door with it raised to his shoulder. "Come on, let's get the bastards!" he yelled as he opened fire.

"Um..." Alvin didn't sound convinced, but he followed anyway. They were proud superior humans and members of the strongest gang in the state and knew what they needed to do, after all.

Despite this, neither of them made it more than ten feet outside the security office.

* * *

Max listened carefully. He could _definitely_ hear, very faintly, a chainsaw. And explosions. And now a weird sort of '_zap-foom!_' sound unlike anything he'd ever encountered before.

Was that someone… _laughing?_

He felt a chill go down his back. There was something very _wrong_ about that sound. Not that any of the others were any better, really. Combined with the sudden lack of power and comms it was obvious that his facility was under attack, by someone who knew how to go about it, and might even have had inside knowledge.

There was a very short list of people who that might be, and right at the top of it was one purple-armored bitch he was going to take enormous pleasure in killing. Possibly quite slowly, although he'd settle for instantly.

_No one_ attacked the Empire and got away with it. He couldn't allow it, since as he'd told Krieg, it was simply too dangerous. They had a reputation to uphold, that of being far too powerful to take on, and that reputation was already at risk even before whatever this was. Now, he had no choice, he'd have to take the gloves off and go all in regardless of cost.

Looking at the phone, he shook his head. It was completely dead, and therefore useless. The radio he pulled out of his desk and turned on quickly disabused him of the idea of using it, as all he got was a horrible sound that had to have been a deliberate jamming attack of some sort. Tinker Tech seemed likely. When he checked his cell phone, it didn't have a signal either. So, basically, the attackers had efficiently removed any simple and direct way to coordinate a reprisal.

He was almost impressed. Not _pleased_, of course, not even a little, but impressed.

So he'd have to do it the hard way. This was going to cause long term problems, as there were most likely still people in the building that were unaware that Medhall was run by the Empire, and he was going to have to deal with the fallout of that, but there was no choice. All the security guards were E88 members with at least some form of training, a few of them ex-military even, and they were all in the know. So were a number of the other personnel, although many of the actual researchers who worked for him had no idea that their work was funding his group.

Except for the labs on floors thirteen and fourteen, of course. '_Special Projects_' was a highly secure place with staff who didn't mingle with the general population, since it would be all too easy for one of them to accidentally let slip that several tons of narcotics a month were made on site. At this time of night, though, those floors would be locked down and empty although some of the more legitimate labs were still in operation, due to having experimental work that needed constant monitoring.

All this went through his mind in a few seconds as he left his office and stomped towards his living quarters. Looking out the window in his bedroom towards the PRT building, he could see a lot more lights on there than normal, presumably all because of the continuing excitement going on over whatever had exploded over by the docks earlier that night. The interactions between the Tinker girl and his first team had undoubtedly stirred the pot even more, as would have her destruction of Krieg and Rune's team.

He couldn't believe that in the space of mere hours he'd lost _five_ capes and dozens of normals. That was so far out of the ordinary it was both deeply worrying and _incredibly_ infuriating.

Someone was going to _pay_ for that insult.

And now they were attacking his _home? _Hadn't they heard of the Rules?

He quickly changed clothes, taking off his expensive suit and putting on more casual garb, as he didn't want to risk ruining a suit that cost over ten grand, then stood in the middle of his huge bedroom and used his power to create his signature armor over the top of it. When the interwoven blades had finished forming across his body, he stretched a little to make sure everything was correct, then left the room, in a determined and coldly furious mood. He could hear the sounds of combat still going on below, that damn chainsaw coming and going intermittently.

It was a pity that Purity had left, and highly annoying that she'd taken Crusader, Night, and Fog with her. He was going to have to work out the best method to get all of them back under his sway when this was all over, as he'd need the firepower. In all honesty he could have done with it right now, but it was too late for that. He'd just have to make do with what he had on hand, but luckily that should be enough. Having called everyone in when all this first began had been the right decision, definitely.

Max had actually stopped in front of the penthouse elevator and prodded the button without thinking about it out of force of habit before he consciously considered the issue. "Fuck," he muttered, his voice echoing in his helmet, when he realized that with the power off the goddamn thing wouldn't work. The emergency lighting was enough to easily see by, especially as his penthouse had a much more elaborate battery backup system which left it fairly well illuminated although not much else was working, but that didn't help him in this case. Sighing, he walked a little further down the hallway and tapped a nine digit sequence into the keypad next to the access door for the stairs. It beeped and unlocked, allowing him to pull it open and enter the stairwell, which was much less well lit, the only illumination being a couple of small LED fittings at the top and bottom of each flight of stairs. The sounds of mayhem from ground level were louder here, echoing up the stairs, although still faint due to distance and the intervening doors.

As the door closed behind him with a slight click he descended the stairs, his armored feet making solid thumps on the industrial rubber coating, until he reached the next floor down. Again, he tapped in a code, pulled the door open, and went into the hallway that led to the residential area below his, which was divided into half a dozen self-contained apartments surrounding a meeting room instead of being one huge dwelling. Passing the first door he hit it with his fist. "Othala! Get out here, we need you!" he yelled, not stopping. As he turned the corner he heard the door open and a confused voice say something he ignored.

A couple of minutes later he was standing in the meeting room at the head of the enormous polished table, looking at his remaining capes, all of whom were in costume, staring at him and twitching every now and then when the sound of shooting from far below them made itself apparent even through the soundproofing. "What the fuck is going on, Max?" Jessica, a statuesque blonde also known as Fenja, said. Everyone looked at her, then at him for an answer.

"We're under attack," he snapped. "Obviously."

"Who?" her twin sister Nessa, or Menja, asked.

"That Tinker bitch. She's killed Hookwolf, Cricket, Victor, Rune, and Krieg," he replied, then got distracted by a small scream of horror from the side as Othala gaped at him, her hands over her mouth. Belatedly thinking that he should probably have broken the news of her husband's death to her a little more carefully, he looked hard at her. "I'm sorry, Othala," he said more or less truthfully. "Victor died a hero's death and we will avenge him. I'll need your help for that. Will you stand with us?"

The young woman looked wide-eyed at him over her hands, then flicked her gaze around at the others, all of whom were watching her, Fenja and Menja with some sympathy and Stormtiger looking furious. "Yes," she whispered after a second or two. Her voice firming, she lowered her hands and repeated, "Yes," more firmly. "I will."

"Good." He looked around at the remaining three. "We've lost half our comrades in one night, to _one woman_. Yes, I miscalculated, I will admit that, but this cannot be allowed. We will stop her, and any support she has, and We. Will. Make. Her. _PAY!_" He slammed his armored fist on the table, leaving a deep scar in the wood. "Our security teams are already engaging the threat. We have no communications, and must rely on our own abilities and intelligence to deal with this woman and her allies. Yes, we are short handed, I admit that, but we have reinforcements in the building and must locate and rally them to our defense. Once we have won, we will make _certain_ that _everyone_ knows that you do _not_ attack the Empire, especially _in their own home!_" He hammered the table again, his voice rising to a near shout as he spoke. Moments after his fist landed, the entire room shook slightly as there was a deep rumbling explosion from somewhere below them, and everyone looked around as the paintings hanging on the walls trembled and swayed.

"They are coming, so we must venture into battle immediately," he said after the sounds and vibrations died down. "Stormtiger, you will head towards the main security office on floor twelve and take command there. Pick a team to go out the emergency escape route and find backup, then bring it back in behind the attackers. Get the heavy weapons out, don't hold back. We're not concerned about damage at this point, it's gone past that. All that matters is that we win and they die, you understand me?"

"I do, Kaiser," Stormtiger replied, standing straight and meeting his eyes.

"Fenja, you are to protect Othala, and proceed to the secondary armory on twenty-two. Take any guards and other personnel you encounter on the way with you, and set up a backup line of defense. Othala, we'll need you to heal any wounded, and provide Fenja with any of your abilities she needs should the attackers make it that far. We're at a disadvantage here since most rooms and corridors are too small to allow either Fenja or Menja to reach their full size, but that can't be helped at the moment. The armory has a fifteen foot ceiling which should help to some degree."

Both the woman he was looking at nodded, Othala wiping her eyes again but looking determined. He turned to the last of his remaining capes. "Menja, you're with me. We're going to find these attackers and take the battle to them. We don't know how many there are, but from the sounds I doubt it's just her. She has allies. They could be coming up any of the stairwells, so everyone stay alert. Gather any information from the guards you can, and keep your eyes open for anything that will help us."

"Maybe we can take out their jammer?" Stormtiger suggested, frowning a little. "If we could get at least the radios working again, it would let us coordinate. And call in some backup faster. Phones would be even better."

Max nodded. "If you spot anything that might be a jamming system destroy it, but we don't have time to go looking for it. It might even be outside the building. We don't know the range either, but when you get a team out they can keep trying until they get through."

"Without any way to talk to each other this is going to be a pain in the ass," Menja sighed.

"I know, but we don't have a choice," he replied with a glance at her. "But it doesn't matter. We're smarter than they are, and if we're careful, we'll prevail." Straightening his back he looked at each of them in turn. "The Empire will prove, yet again, why we are the most powerful organization in this city. And when this is over, we will have a far greater reputation than we did before, I can assure you of that. All right, you all have your missions, so let's go. We don't have the luxury of time."

All four of them saluted him, then all but Menja left, Stormtiger going one way at a run, the other two turning in the other direction and hurrying off. He turned to Menja, who had grown to the maximum size she could manage in the building, which was about nine feet tall. Her spear was in her hand and she looked determined but worried. "Come on, we have a Tinker to kill."

The woman nodded, and followed as he stalked out of the building, heading for the north stairwell.

He was _not_ in a good mood. And was about to make that abundantly clear to _everyone_.

* * *

Lisa looked at her friends, who were all sitting around the table in the hotel suite's main room. They'd finished the chinese food half an hour ago and were now staring at each other, trying to think of something useful to say.

Both her power and her own native wit told her that Brian wanted to return to Brockton Bay and retrieve his sister, and if possible his father, but at the same time didn't want to go anywhere _near_ the fucking place. Based on what they'd seen online, she sympathized enormously with that latter viewpoint. Rachel was being quiet even for her, and kept glancing nervously at both the TV and Lisa herself. And Alec, despite his lack of normal emotional tells, clearly was also more nervous than she'd ever seen him before, although he was covering this with his usual lackadaisical manner.

In her own case, she didn't know _what_ the hell was going on. She'd found herself in her familiar bedroom in the Undersider's loft, sitting in her bed staring at her teammates, who were all looking at her like they'd seen a ghost. Before she could even begin to try to work out why the loudest explosion she'd ever personally heard had lit the entire place like daylight in a strange color and nearly blown the windows in, then everything had gone entirely nuts. In a remarkably short period of time she'd been dragged downstairs, bodily thrown into the back of a van they didn't own and she'd never seen before, and they were driving hell for leather out of the city while she was asking a lot of questions and getting more and more annoyed and worried about the lack of answers.

The _actual_ answers she _did_ eventually get made her even more worried, as well as scared, as they made no sense whatsoever.

And her power was playing up. That had never happened before. But she got, somehow, the distinct impression that _it_ was more scared than _she_ was, which was insane. It was starting to feel for all the world like her power was an entirely separate thing from her, and a thing that was terrified. The data she was getting from it made no sense whatsoever most of the time, and when it did actually seem to give a straight answer, it only made her confusion deeper.

There was also the little problem of her apparently missing chunks of time here and there. As, for example, about twenty minutes or so ending when she found herself looking at the other three who were hugging the wall like idiots and staring at her wide eyed, over couple of bags of piping hot food.

The explanation that she'd received, several times, about what had allegedly happened between the last thing she could remember previous to that and then was entirely ridiculous, and obviously wrong.

Except she could tell from their expressions and voices that _they_ believed it utterly. Alec, she could accept might be pulling her leg, thinking it was hilarious, although he was also lazy enough that he probably wouldn't keep it up this long. Rachel, on the other hand… Not a hope. She didn't _do_ practical jokes. She barely had a sense of humor at all most of the time. And Brian, while he was quite content to go along with Alec a lot of the time, or her for that matter, wasn't the type for this sort of little jape. Not to mention that she knew him pretty well and she _knew_ when he was telling the truth, even without her powers.

Which were _also_ telling her something fucking bizarre was going on, while trying to hide under the bedclothes.

How that worked she had no clue whatsoever.

But if she accepted that the ridiculous things they'd told here were actually _true_, what did that mean? For her, for them, hell, for the entire world for that matter? It implied that something fundamental and deeply disturbing had happened, possibly changing everything in ways she couldn't begin to work out.

And who or what _was… 'The Doom Queen?_' That was what Brian had said _she'd_ said during her latest lapse of whatever-the-fuck-it-was, along with mentioning a lot of things that were terrifying, all in a voice that wasn't hers. Clearly it referred to the maniac in purple armor who was all over PHO, but _who was she? _The name didn't exactly inspire confidence.

Lisa blinked.

Brian was now standing, not having apparently covered the intervening distance in the normal way of actually _moving_, while Rachel had vanished and Alec was pointing at her with one hand, his eyes wide and worried.

"She did it again, Brian," he yelped, backing away as Lisa looked around at them, confused yet again. "Make her _stop_ doing that! It's creepy as _fuck_."

"I'm not _doing_ anything, you asshole," she snapped, glaring at him.

"Yeah, sure. Just suddenly sounding like someone playing a heavy metal record backwards at half speed is _entirely_ normal behavior," he retorted, moving to stand behind the sofa while keeping a wary eye on her. A whimpering sound under the table made her look to see Rachel's dogs all huddled around Rachel, none of them looking happy, although at least this time the floor was clear of urine. Neither dogs nor human seemed prone to coming out, so she just shook her head and straightened up again.

"This is ridiculous," she complained, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. "What's going on?"

"I have no idea but I don't like it at all," Brian finally replied, cautiously coming back to the table, righting the chair he'd apparently toppled in his rush to leave the vicinity, and sitting in it, not taking his eyes off her in the process.

"So what did I allegedly say this time?" she asked a little warily, still not entirely believing all this.

In response, he pulled out his phone and put it on the table. She looked at it, then him. "I had a recorder app running just in case," he admitted with a shrug. Somewhat impressed, she nodded, watching as he tapped the screen.

**"The Fires of Hell are hers to control, all Demons submit to her might or perish, now and forever. Her RAGE is unlimited and she has risen to overcome all that could stand against her. She is the Doom Queen, rightful ruler of the dimensions of Hell, unbeatable and unvanquished. Yet she is capable of mercy to those who offer her peace and do not stand in her way. Worship her Glory, bask in her Anger, fear her on the field of War. Serve Her Will and Thrive. Become Her enemy and ****_Perish Screaming in Despair_****."**

When Lisa stopped shivering, she slowly raised her eyes from the innocent phone, which was now gently smoking as it melted into the tabletop. Brian and Alec were also staring at it in horror. The voice, that _ghastly_ voice that she was told had come out of _her_ mouth… She was abruptly very glad she _couldn't_ remember it.

Hearing a trickling sound, she looked under the table, sighed, and shook her head. "Rachel, go take a shower."

"You think that means we're safe if we go back to the Bay?" Alec asked, his face pale. "I mean, if we don't go against… _Her?"_

Brian looked at him, then Lisa. He also didn't look even vaguely happy. "I… don't know." After a moment, he shook his head. "But I can't leave Aisha there. I _have_ to go back."

"In and out fast, then, keeping our heads down," Lisa said. At the expressions of the others, she shrugged. "We're a team. For better or worse. And this is… probably about as '_worse_' as it gets."

"You're telling me," Alec mumbled. He was still staring at her. "Are you going to do that a lot?" he asked. "It's kind of… worrying."

"I'm not doing it on _purpose, _fucker," she shouted. "I don't have a goddam _clue_ what's going on or why it's picking on _me_."

"Calm down, both of you," Brian yelled. He tried picking what was left of his phone up, swore when it sizzled against his fingers, and stuck them in his mouth. "You owe me a new phone, Lisa," he mumbled more quietly.

Lisa glared at him, then beaned him with a pot of plum sauce.

They were still bickering when Rachel came back and sat on the sofa surrounded by worried dogs, but in the end they all decided to go back, very very carefully, and try to find Brian's sister and father.

But only in the day. None of them had the slightest wish to go anywhere near that place in the dark…

* * *

"You four, and you two. You're going to go over to the safe house on Bleeker Avenue and bring _everyone _back here, along with every single fucking gun you can lay hands on," Stormtiger ordered moments after he slammed the door to the armory open and looked around. He indicated half a dozen people, all of whom were looking somewhat worried and confused about the continuous sounds of battle from down below, which were getting closer and louder. Moving to one of the weapons lockers he threw the doors open and grabbed a couple of AK-74s, handing one each to two of his designated exfiltrators. "Take all the ammo you need, hell Kaiser says take any fucking weapon you want. Just make sure you bring back everyone. And I mean, _everyone,_ you got me?"

They all exchanged glances, then nodded. "Sure, Stormtiger. Er… who's actually attacking us? The PRT? The ABB? How many of them are there?" The speaker was a huge man built like a viking warrior, with long blond hair he obviously spent too much time on. He was visibly nervous, flinching when something far under them detonated with a blast that shook the entire building.

"No, no, I don't have a fucking clue, and it's that fucking Tinker girl Hookwolf was sent to recruit as far as we know," Stormtiger snapped, glaring at the man. "Who the fuck cares anyway? We're being attacked, we deal with it. Get your gear and get the hell out of here. Comms are being jammed so you won't be able to call us, but I want you to keep trying with the radios and phones on the way, and as soon as you get out of range of the jamming put out a call for a general assault on the place. Now _move it!_"

All six men jumped to attention, gave him a hasty Nazi salute, and started rummaging frantically through the vast collection of weaponry in the huge room, all of which would have made the authorities salivate at the number of charges that could be laid on the possessors. Satisfied, he turned to the remaining E88 gang members who ran security in the Medhall building, all of them wearing the relevant uniforms and being the more intelligent ones for the most part. "OK, you lot, we're setting up a series of choke points on all the stairwells on floors seven, nine, and eleven. Get the fifty cals set up on tripods, with as much ammo as you can carry. Flashbangs and concussion grenades too. You two over there, get out that box of claymores and rig them on all access routes up on six. Right fucking now! _GO!_" He yelled the last order even as he was picking out a bandoleer of grenades for his own use, to supplement his powers.

The seventeen men and two women still in the room rush to follow his instructions, considerable quantities of armaments shortly leaving the room in their arms or on hand trucks. He followed, checking that the pistol he'd picked up as a backup was fully loaded, then striding forward with a grim look on his face as he went to deal with those who fancied their chances against the glory of the Empire.

* * *

"We're getting a lot of reports of heavy weapons fire at the Medhall building, Director," one of the PRT dispatchers said over his shoulder, as he worked on his console. "Witnesses say that there are also strange sounds and visuals they think are powers at work. Bright green and blue flashes of light, and some maniac with a chainsaw who cut the front door into ribbons about ten minutes ago." He looked back at Emily. "Should I send someone in?"

Emily glanced at Renick, who raised an eyebrow, then Miss Militia who was holding the back of a chair in a white-knuckled grip as she listened and watched the main activity map on the big screen where it was showing a whole series of color-coded icons surrounding the Medhall Plaza. "Medhall. Huh. Guess we just found out who's behind the E88," she muttered to her second in command, who nodded slightly. "No. Tell our people to stay well away from there, and get BBPD to stand down immediately and put a cordon around the entire area a quarter-mile out. No one is to go inside it until further notice," she ordered. The man stared at her for a second, then merely nodded and turned back to his equipment, typing rapidly while talking quietly into his headset.

They watched as the various icons changed, a number of them showing real-time locations of PRT and BBPD assets diverting course or halting before they reached the perimeter she'd designated, which appeared on the screen as a dashed red line forming a circle with the Medhall building in the center. "You can't be serious, Director," Miss Militia objected, her voice wavering a little in outrage. "Someone is attacking the largest and wealthiest company in the entire city, with Parahuman..."

Emily raised a hand, cutting her off. "I'm entirely certain that the person attacking that place is Overkill, probably with her father, and the reason she's doing it is that it's an E88 asset, somehow," she said with a growl. "I don't know for sure, but we're going to want to talk to Rune some more, I think. Assuming she's still being cooperative."

"She's _extremely_ cooperative," Renick put in. "Almost pathetically so. Overkill scared the ever-living shit out of her and she'll do or say _anything_ to avoid ever meeting her again."

"Good. Go and find out what the connection to Medhall is, then. I'm curious." Raising her voice as he nodded and left the command center, she ordered, "Get a drone in the air and get us visuals of the Medhall tower. No manned aircraft within a two mile radius under any circumstances. And make _very_ sure it's an _unarmed_ drone. I do _not_ want Overkill thinking we're trying to take a shot at her..."

"Ma'am," the flight directions officer replied crisply, already clicking icons. Seconds later he added, "Drone away, time to target fifty seconds."

Everyone turned to look at the other screen next to the one showing the Brockton Bay map, which was now displaying an aerial view of the city from a viewpoint that was rapidly rising, before it started moving north-west. Very soon, they were watching a light-amplified image of the four hundred foot building a few miles away at the other end of the commercial district, one of the tallest in Brockton Bay. Flashes of light could be seen through the glass exterior, most of them clearly automatic gunfire, in large enough quantities that it was very clear that there was a massive firefight going on inside. A lot of the windows on the lowest six or seven floors were missing, and as they watched a huge fireball blew out half the ones on the next floor up as something large went off, showering glass all over the street below.

Several people swore under their breaths at the sight, then winced when a blindingly bright beam of _something_ cut horizontally across the entire side of the tower on that floor, causing a large piece of the exterior skin to crumble and collapse. This exposed internal rooms and corridors to their view, showing at least two dozen people firing a large collection of heavy weapons including an RPG launcher at another figure at the front of the building. This one was wearing all too familiar power armor and seemed entirely unmoved by being the target of enough firepower to take out a small battalion.

Overkill swapped out the energy gun she'd been using for something different, then pointed it out to the side, firing a dozen small rockets that whistled into the distance, towards the drone, before arcing back around and going right into one group of E88 gangers, who the people doing all the defending clearly were. The image whited out for a moment and when it reappeared there was a hole thirty feet in diameter in the side of the Medhall tower, cross sections of three floors visible through it. Of the armed people who had been there, no trace remained.

Dead silence in the control center was broken by one of the console operators, who said rather faintly, "She doesn't fuck about, does she?"

"No, she does not," Emily sighed. Glancing at Miss Militia who was gaping at the screen with her eyes wide over her bandanna, she continued, "Oddly enough, I _do not_ want that firepower and that '_kill everything that moves_' attitude aimed at _us_. _That _is why I'm perfectly happy to let her have her fun, and wait for her to calm down before we talk to her. Very, _very_ politely. Are we clear?"

The super heroine nodded dumbly, not looking away from the screen. Emily, feeling that no more needed to be said, although she was also pretty sure that this wouldn't apply in Armsmaster's case as he was a fucking pain in the ass a lot of the time, returned her attention to it as well. She was just in time to see a tall man in a long leather trench-coat hurdle a crater on the eleventh floor through the missing glass, turn in mid air, and fire several shots from a large shotgun at the people pursuing him. Light reflected from his glasses as four of them dropped like sacks of rice and he landed, rolled, got to his feet in one motion, and disappeared deeper into the building.

"Jesus fucking Christ," she muttered. "Dock worker my _ass_. Who _is_ that goddamn man?"

His daughter leaped out of the floor under him, grabbed one of the twisted I-beams sticking out of the wreckage of the building's outer skin, flipped over it, and went feet first through one of the few unbroken windows in a shower of glass, wielding a chainsaw single-handed as she did. A second later half a body came back out through the opening. Emily winced.

Hannah was now sitting limply in the chair she'd been holding the back of watching the screen like someone who couldn't believe what she was seeing, and everyone else in the room was completely silent. Emily looked around, then shook her head. Clearly no actual work was going to happen until this was over, but on the other hand, life had gone so fucking surreal in the last few hours there wasn't really anything _to_ do except wait to see how it all ended.

She still wondered where the buggering hell Costa-Brown and all the other pains in her ass were right now, but in all honesty she couldn't see how they could do anything other than make a bad situation far worse, so she wasn't going to waste any time worrying about it. All she could do was try to keep a lid on things until whatever this actually_ was_ came to an end, hopefully leaving most of the city intact, and her people could clean up the resulting mess.

Tomorrow was a long way away, and it was going to be a _bitch_ to deal with, she felt gloomily certain.

On the other hand, by then the E88 would be history, so it wasn't all bad. And she still had Shadow Stalker to terrify at some point soon, which was something she was looking forward too. Although she had no idea what she was going to do when Overkill came looking for her head...

Oh well. Another problem for a future version of her. She pitied the bitch. Right now, she could do little but watch the Hebert's having a family moment.

So she sat down and did exactly that.

* * *

"The purple demon is destroying the Medhall tower, Great Lung."

Lung, from the darkness of his room, looked at the messenger, who was sweating and visibly terrified.

"The Medhall tower?" He mused on the ramifications, while trying to keep his internal feelings at bay. "I see. Interesting."

"Do you want us to do anything?"

"No. It is not our business. We will have nothing to do with her activities. Merely watch and report."

"As you command."

"What of the reports of strange creatures in the docks?" he asked.

The man flinched. "We… are unable to confirm it, but there are many stories. None the same, other than that demonic creatures roam the night and growl at people."

"Nothing else?"

The messenger swallowed hard. "We heard a rumor that a bar on the waterfront was visited by the E88, then the demons arrived and… ate them."

Lung stared at the man. "_Ate_ them?" he echoed.

"Yes, Great Lung. After a short but violent battle. None survived. We did not risk going into the bar itself. That establishment is… known to be dangerous if provoked. Dockworkers go there."

He nodded thoughtfully. He'd heard much the same more than once, and there were tales of some very strange things in the docks going back for years at least. Demons wandering the place were actually slightly _less_ peculiar than some of the things he'd heard… "Leave me," he ordered. "And withdraw any of our people in the docks for now. No one is to risk a confrontation."

"Yes, Great Lung," the man nodded, bowing low, then quickly backing away and closing the door. Lung looked at it, then at his hand, which he flexed a few times.

"What is going on?" he wondered under his breath. "What has happened to my power?"

He looked around, unable to answer the question, then added to himself, "And where the hell is Oni Lee?"

There was no answer, so in the end he went back to thinking and wondering. And playing Candy Crush, which was something he didn't let other people know about.

* * *

Stormtiger ducked as a ravening violet-white beam the thickness of his arm went so close over his head he ended up with a reverse mohawk and punched a hole right through the wall in front of him. He gaped at it for a fraction of a second, seeing a flash of far-off streetlight through it at the other end of the building, the beam having gone through the entire tower like it was made of rice paper, then dived sideways and used his flight powers to fling himself up the stairwell. Below him, the entire thing collapsed as a massive blast blew the walls in with a boiling fireball in eldritch colors, the heat rising from it throwing him into the next floor hard enough to wind him. Ripping the door open having slashed the lock off with his aerokinetic claws, he shot through it and around the corner.

"Fuck, that crazy bitch is _insane!_" he gibbered, shocked despite himself. He'd been in some violent cape battles over the years, but nothing like this. The Tinker girl went right for the lethal option from the outset, took no prisoners, and had more weapons than the US army did.

He was very concerned that he might not have seen any of the _really_ big ones yet…

And why the _fuck_ was she so invested in using that damned _chainsaw?_ He'd never be able to look at a lumberjack the same way again after seeing what he'd seen.

'_She's closer to a fucking Endbringer than a human,_' he thought frantically, looking around for reinforcements. Her armor was far, far tougher than Armsmaster's, or even Dragon's, his most lethal attacks doing absolutely nothing to it. He couldn't even scratch the paint. And he'd seen an armor piercing RPG round hit her dead in the back and do about as much damage as a paintball gun would do, except that at least the paintball would _leave a mark!_

She hadn't apparently even _noticed!_ Just kept hunting down some of his people while the guy with her had taken out the RPG man with a shotgun to the chest from much further away than seemed reasonable, before disappearing back inside one of the labs just in time for Stormtiger's return attack to shred the wall where he'd been standing.

He had no idea who the guy was, but he had a healthy respect for his aim.

And his ability to simply ghost away without trace. Clearly some sort of Stranger, but not one he'd ever heard of.

At least eighty percent of the people he'd had with him were dead, along with half the other fifty or so they'd managed to get together from around the building. He had no idea where Max was right now, Menja was dead having been pretty much cut in half by the crazy Tinker's chainsaw when the woman had dropped on her head from two stories up, and right now all he could think to do was fall back to the secondary armory. Hopefully Fenja and Othala had managed to set up a decent line of defense, although he wasn't certain that it would do much against whatever was following him.

Around the next corner he ran into half a dozen security people, all armed to the teeth. "She's coming," he said as he joined them. "The claymores didn't do a damn thing except wreck the area. Keep your eyes open for an older guy with a shotgun, as far as I can see that's all her backup, but don't underestimate the bastard. He's a combat Stranger or something like that. Jake, Wilhelm, you go that way, set up the incendiaries. Maybe that will slow them down. Heinrich, Fred, you two go the other way, toss a charge down the south stairs and blow them. Anything we can do to slow them down. You two, come with me, we need to get to the secondary armory right now."

"Any sign of reinforcements, sir?" one of the guards said nervously.

"No. Nothing yet." He looked over his shoulder as the floor shook. "Fuck. Get on with it, all of you. Fall back to twenty two when you're done."

As everyone scattered to their assigned tasks, he took off at a flat run with the other pair following closely.

Moments later there was a horrible descending scream from outside the building just after a large _boom!_ made the floor shake again.

"Wilhelm!" One of his two current companions stopped for a second, yelling out the name, only for his friend to push him into a run again.

"He will be avenged," Stormtiger vowed. He wasn't sure _how_ at the moment, but it was important to keep morale up.

All three of them kept running, quickly reaching a stairwell and ascending as fast as they could. Behind them, the explosions, shooting, and screaming kept on approaching floor by floor, lighting the dark of the tower as the attackers pressed further and further in.

* * *

Max swore violently and spun on one heel, changing direction as he spotted a flash of purple armor at the far end of one of the long corridors running across the building from side to side. That bitch was still coming, and still wiping out every single person who came into sight. He was lucky to be alive, as he'd paused in sheer shock when she'd dropped on Menja with a yell of triumph that had made his blood run cold, accompanied by a roar from her fucking chainsaw and the most horrific scream he'd ever heard from his cape. Who had found her power nowhere near enough to help against an armored lunatic wielding a huge powered tool like a bread knife, with apparent glee.

He shivered despite himself. He had no idea who these Hebert people really were, since the cover story he'd been told was _clearly_ entirely bogus, but they were _nuts_. Absolutely barking mad and homicidal with it, to a level he'd never encountered even in the craziest capes Gesellschaft could produce.

A massive impact right in the middle of his back, accompanied by a very loud bang, made him fall forward. Swearing, and wincing in pain, he rolled frantically across the floor, knocking chairs and desks aside in the large open plan office he'd been strategically retreating at speed across. Deer slugs slammed into the floor and furniture, blowing holes the side of his fist into the latter, until he managed to scramble out of the room into another corridor.

Getting to his feet he took the opportunity of his opponent, presumable the elder Hebert, reloading to leg it as fast as humanly possible to the next flight of stairs, then shot up it like he _wasn't_ covered in steel. Steel that was scratched, dented, and scorched in a number of places.

This was the part that was driving him around the bend. His own powers were completely fucking useless against _either_ of the crazy motherfuckers attacking his building. The girl, because she simply _ignored_ them, and he was for some reason utterly unable to actually affect her own armor at all, and her father because _the bastard was impossible to actually _**_see._** The damn man was like a ghost, popping up here and there when he was least wanted and taking appallingly accurate shots at you, then promptly vanishing again. And the one time Max was sure he'd figured out where he was hiding and had moved to capitalize on that, he'd nearly lost his head to an energy beam from the _other_ gun the bastard had with him.

He still wasn't sure if the elder Hebert had actually missed on purpose, for that matter. Just to rub it in…

It seemed like something he'd do.

Swearing, Max kept running, trying to get up to the second level armory, while wondering where the fuck the rest of his people were.

* * *

"Come on, hurry the fuck up will you?"

"Calm down, Darren, and brush your hair or something," one of the fifty or so E88 members who were ripping open crates of weapons shouted, invoking a mass laugh and some jeering from many of the others there. Darren glared at him while fingering his gun.

"Funny. Very funny."

"Do you use your wife's shampoo?" someone else called with a smirk audible in his voice.

"I don't _have_ a wife," Darren grated.

"He tried once, but she was jealous of his ha..." The first mocker got a large fist in the face, which caused him to stop talking rather abruptly. Darren looked around at the rest.

"Stop talking and start working, you dickheads. Kaiser is relying on us getting back as quick as we can. So get all this stuff into the trucks and let's go!" Pointing at the half dozen army-surplus vehicles, which were standing in a row along the front of the large open area of the former spice warehouse they were using to store their equipment in, he waved his gun meaningfully with his other hand. "Come on, get on with it."

"You could help you bastard," the man lying on the floor with his hands over his broken nose whined. Darren kicked him in the side in disgust.

"I'm supervising. Get up and get back to work."

With ill grace the ganger did as ordered, mumbling obscenities under his breath and casting Darren dark looks. Satisfied that things were proceeding to plan, the currently senior E88 man leaned on a crate full of rocket launchers and put a cigarette in his mouth. About to light it, he turned his head as there was a thump on the main door, sounding like someone had hit it with the butt of a gun. "Finally. Goddamn idiots, where the hell have those fuckwits _been?_" he grumbled as he stomped over to the door and pulled it open. Peering into the darkness outside, he added more loudly, "Harry, you lazy asshole, where are..."

Something flew past him and landed on the floor with a dull thud, twenty feet behind him. He turned to look at the stained and chipped concrete, and the thing rolling across it. Everyone else did as well.

There was a long, _long_ pause.

The cigarette dropped out of Darren's slack mouth as he gaped at the decapitated head of Harry, which was leaking fluids onto the floor, then he very slowly turned to look out the door.

Something moved into the light, something about eight feet tall, with horns, hooves, and a nasty fanged smile that promised mayhem and death. He didn't even have the ability to run, frozen in place by terror as he was.

The thing stopped at the door. It looked around at the stunned gangers, all of whom were white and shaking, then fixed its eyes on Darren.

**"We serve HER will,"** it said in a voice that literally made him piss himself. It was something that didn't belong in the real world, something from the depths of a nightmare. And the worst part is how _amused_ it sounded.

Leaning down to stare directly into his eyes, the thing that he suspected might well actually come from Hell added, almost conversationally as it if was just passing the time of day,** "In serving HER will we remove those minor problems beneath HER notice. Are ****_you_**** such a problem?"**

After a brittle moment, Darren shook his head very fast indeed. He was standing in a puddle of yellow, his pants warm, and was wishing he'd never listened to some of the stories his grandmother told him about what happened to naughty boys.

**"Pity. We do so look forward to serving HER will,"** the thing said reflectively.

A bullet bounced off its head.

Everyone, including the demonic thing, turned to look at the man who was pointing a gun at it, looking like he regretted every life choice not only him, but his ancestors, had ever made up to that point.

The demonic creature smiled. Several people fainted. Many of the rest backed away from the man with the gun. **"Ah. I suspect that ****_you_ do _not_**** serve HER will. Excellent."**

Darren had the presence of mind to jump out of the way as the horror of the night came through the door in the rush, amid a vast amount of gunfire and explosions, as about half the gangers decided to shoot. When he was found some hours later by a very cautious PRT patrol, along with less than ten other survivors, he was rocking back and forth and apparently trying to persuade his long-dead grandmother to stop telling him things.

* * *

Peering out her bedroom window, Amy listened to the distant explosions and screams that rang out across a weirdly silent Brockton Bay, faint but peculiarly clear in the night, like that tiny whine from a mosquito that you can hear even though it's right at the threshold of detectability. She shivered involuntarily, wondering what morning would bring.

Things had changed, that much she was sure. This new cape, Overkill, was…

She didn't know _what_ she was, aside from the single most terrifying thing in existence going on what Director Piggot had said. From the look in the woman's eyes, she meant every word. Amy didn't know what that meant in the longer term, but in the immediate future it apparently meant the city would be down one gang.

The girl was actually OK with that, having put far too many people back together as a result of Kaiser and his bastards to really care much about how they died, but she wasn't sure what else was going to change and how. Probably everything and drastically, she felt, but it was far outside her own field of expertise or knowledge.

Hopefully it would end there, at least until some other asshole decided to poke someone who could and apparently would simply shoot an enemy dead on the spot without hesitation.

Amy wasn't entirely sure that was _good_, it being pretty solidly against normal Parahuman politics, but on the other hand, who was going to tell Overkill _not_ to do that and make it stick? Apparently not the PRT, so that didn't leave much. Hopefully she was of a normally calm disposition or there were going to be a _lot_ of dead people and craters in the near future.

She sighed, leaning both elbows on the windowsill and watching as flashes of light came up from somewhere just over the horizon, roughly in the middle of the city. Today had definitely not gone like it normally did, and she was both worried about and confused about Dean aside from anything else. She didn't actually _like_ him for a number of reasons, but she respected him in many ways, and didn't like seeing anyone in that state. Especially as she had no idea what was behind it.

Unless it was somehow connected to Overkill?

Thinking for a moment, she finally shook her head. She couldn't see how, although powers were weird at the best of times. Oh well. Sooner or later she, or someone else, would figure it out. It was Vicky she was really sorry for, her sister hadn't taken Dean's whatever-it-was very well. And Carol had spent quite a lot of time grumbling about Director Piggot, Armsmaster, Overkill, and a number of other things that didn't bode well. Aunt Sarah had finally lost her patience and extracted a promise from her sister that the other woman would fully comply with the Director's orders, which had been extremely clear and forceful. Hopefully that would be the end of it, regardless of how annoyed Carol was. Which was very.

Shaking her head, she finally got cold enough to close the window and go to bed, finding that her dreams were much less normal than she was used to.

Danny jabbed the heal pack injector into his bicep, hissing a little at the mild full-body agony as it worked. "Should have ducked faster," his daughter's amused voice said from next to him. He fixed her with a hard look while removing and discarding the injector.

"Perhaps you could remember the difference between _left_ and _right_ next time," he suggested acidly.

"I know left and right perfectly well, thanks," she said mildly. "I meant _my_ right."

"Very helpful," he grumbled, poking the hole in his coat arm. "I like this coat."

"I'll buy you a new one," she chuckled.

"Your mother gave me this."

"I'll pay to have it repaired, then. Forget the coat. Let's finish the job."

Both of them looked around, inspecting the dark corridors surrounding them, wind blowing through where walls and windows had been, with flickering emergency lights in a few places. Far below the city spread out all around the Medhall building, except to the south where the dark water of the bay reached to the horizon with only the glittering force-field surrounding the Rig in the middle of it visible.

"I can see our house from up here," he commented.

"Really?"

"Yeah, look, just over there and up a little." He pointed. She peered along his arm.

"Oh, yeah. Neat. Right, let's deal with the rest of these fuckwits and we can go home."

"Sounds good," he smiled. "Pity I'm out of bubblegum."

She snickered, then kicked Kaiser's office door in with one foot and walked in. He followed, grinning to himself.

"Hello, Max," she said calmly to the man in armor who was standing on the other side of the room, a very battered Stormtiger next to him clutching what was left of his right arm, which currently ended about the elbow. A younger woman was cowering by a door that seemed to lead into a bedroom, presumably the penthouse suite.

"What do you _want?_" Kaiser, who was missing quite a lot of his armor, and seemed too exhausted to replace it, said as he slumped against the wall. "You've killed all but two of my capes, wiped out my entire security team, _wrecked_ my entire fucking _building_, and destroyed my life. _What more do you want?_" He shouted the last part, making the girl, presumably Othala based on her costume, twitch a little.

Taylor examined him, then Stormtiger. She glanced at Danny, who shrugged. He didn't mind one way or another. This was her operation.

She raised her plasma rifle and pointed it at him. He looked back at the weapon, appearing resigned. Stormtiger tensed, winced, and passed out.

"I am not interested in joining your gang," Taylor told him. "Don't ask again or I will be _very_ angry. You really wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

After several seconds, Kaiser yanked what was left of his helmet off his head and threw it to the floor, then pointed at her wordlessly. Then he waved a hand around the room, before pointing at her again, his mouth working.

Eventually his voice seemed to come back. "**ANGRY!?**" he screeched in disbelief. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS IF NOT **_ANGRY?_**_"_

Taylor walked slowly over to him, put the muzzle of the energy weapon to his forehead, and flicked a switch on it. The thing hummed almost eagerly. "Me making the point that I don't like Nazis and don't like being threatened," she said quietly. "Fuck with me again and I'll do something _really_ horrible." She leaned in, as he paled to the color of bad milk. "Listen to me, Max Anders. I am Taylor Hebert. I have killed worlds, destroyed entire civilizations, walked through dimensions that will know my name for all time and _fear_ it. And _your people_ interrupted me having a pizza _with my dad._ Don't _ever _do that again or I'll come back, destroy everything you have left, and _personally_ drag you to hell by the balls. You understand me?"

Kaiser nodded jerkily. Danny smiled.

"Great. And stop pretending to be a Nazi, both of us know you're just an asshole." She lowered the gun and stepped back. "Take your two capes and get out of my city. Don't ever come back, and don't ever let me hear about you again, because if I _do_..." She put the gun away and turned to Danny. Behind her Kaiser fell to his knees, while Othala seemed to have passed out just like Stormtiger. "Come on, we're done here."

"How are we getting downstairs?" Danny asked reasonably, smiling a little. He felt very proud of his daughter. "They're suffering a deficiency of stairs at the moment."

"Hey. Portal to our house, now," Taylor called. "Don't make me move you up the list."

Danny watched as a dark pink mist appeared off to one side, causing Taylor to nod in satisfaction. "That's a good trick," he said mildly.

"It's useful, but you wouldn't believe the trouble I've had with it," she grumbled as she walked towards it. "I'm going to have to talk to someone about that very soon. But right now I need to relax for a while." She walked into the mist without slowing.

Danny paused at the threshold, looking back at Kaiser, who was watching him.

He smiled grimly. Making a motion to his eyes, then at the other man, he waved, and followed his daughter.

* * *

Max stared at where the pink mist had been, trying to think. It was difficult, he'd had far too many near death experiences and his head was aching like it was about to fall off, plus he was totally, absolutely _exhausted._

He looked around at the wreckage of the building. It was slightly amazing that it was still standing, considering the number of holes in it and how much was in pieces on the ground.

Then he looked at Stormtiger, and Othala. The only ones left of his entire Empire. He was pretty sure that the fucking Heberts had done for everyone else.

Then he lay on the floor and laughed bitterly for about five minutes, before getting up to poke Othala awake so she could heal both him and Stormtiger. As he did that, he looked at his phone, which although cracked still worked, and saw it had full signal. Sighing, he sent a text to a number he knew well, but had never called.

* * *

Emily put the phone down on the table, then stared at it for a while. "Huh."

She looked up at Renick, who was watching her curiously, then turned to examine the drone image. The Medhall tower was looking precarious but was still standing. "Think we can land a VTOL on the helipad without the entire thing falling over?" she queried, pointing at the screen. He followed her finger, then looked enquiringly at her.

"Kaiser, who is indeed Max Anders, says that if we rescue him, Othala, and Stormtiger from his penthouse and guarantee that none of them ever see Brockton Bay or the Heberts again he'll tell us everything we want to know about the Empire Eighty Eight, Gesellschaft, and four separate international weapons and drugs smuggling operations."

Renick raised an eyebrow and looked at the screen again. Then he grinned.

She sighed faintly. "This fucking city..."


	16. Omake - The BOOM of DOOM

_ Just a little omake to mark American Explosive Treason Day :D _

* * *

"What's that one?"

"I call it the _Asteroid Impact._"

"Catchy name. Is it any good?"

"Not bad, I guess. Bit small, but it's still pretty."

"Hmm. Ah, what about _this_ one?"

"That's the finale."

"It's… quite large. And hard to look at. Seems to have too many corners for the number of sides."

"Yeah, the people I got it from are… well, they're pretty weird. Friendly, but weird. Scaly too."

"You did meet some interesting people in your travels."

"Some right fuckers too, I have to admit. Mind you,_ they're_ not a problem any more."

"That's my girl. So what does it do, anyway?"

"The clue is in the name there."

"'_Stellar Detonator Type XIV_. I see."

"You need to set it off quite a long way away to be completely safe..."

"I imagine you do. All right, I agree, that's for last. What do we start with?"

"Well, I want Mr Death to have some fun, but I was thinking a spread of plasma warheads to kick things off, then maybe shoot off a couple of those things."

"Huh. That's not any of the UAC designs you showed me."

"No, I picked that up from this giant AI tank I met. We swapped some designs. He told me the hellbore was pretty impressive, and I want to see if he's right. Took ages to build it, but it checks out."

"I think we should stand _way_ over there, just in case."

"Sure. I made a remote for it."

"Good. And these smaller ones?"

"That one makes every particle in the zone of effect fly apart at the speed of light. Total protonic reversal, that scientist said, then he screamed and ran away when I explained what I wanted it for. Or it might have been because of that Zuul guy, he was a dick. Not a very tough dick though… Anyway, this other one here just makes a pretty light show for a while. And sometimes summons extremely hostile demons, but lately they seem to be staying away for some reason. Bit irritating, I could do with the target practice."

"I see. And this one?"

"Oh, that thing is pretty cool, it'll blow a hole the size of the moon in a planet."

"Really?"

"Yep. I tried it. Moon fitted right in no problem."

"Impressive indeed."

"I thought so."

"Seems like we have a decent loadout then. I've got a few toys of my own I've been sitting on for a while, like this thing. Picked it up when I was dating your mother."

"'Baby Nukem? Weird name."

"It's pretty funny. They hear it coming, and run like hell. Doesn't usually help."

"Hah. Nice one, Dad."

"Your mother loved it. Anyway, we're running out of time, so we should get ready."

**"I have retrieved the hot dogs of DOOM, my Queen."**

"Did you get the pizza too?"

**"Um… I will be back soon, my Queen. My apologies."**

"Whatever. Oh, make sure we get the _good_ mustard this time, you hear me?"

**"As my Queen commands, so shall it be."**

"You better believe it."

"He's polite all things considered."

"Yeah, they're pretty helpful. OK, let's get everything set up. You! Portal, now. And you lot, grab all this and carry it through. _Do not drop it!_"

**"As my Queen commands."**

"Coming, Dad?"

"Yes, just hold on a second, I need another beer… OK, let's go. Video recording on?"

"Of course, I want to remember this."

"And you're sure no one wants this star system any more?"

"Not… any more, no."

"That is a truly disturbing grin, Taylor."

"Thanks, Dad. Yours is pretty good too. Oh, should we send a copy to dear old Max? Just to let him know we remember him?"

"Should help keep him honest. Excellent idea."

"This should be fun. I've always loved the fourth of July..."

* * *

Emily watched as the screen gradually dimmed to reveal what was left of a star, her hands clammy and her face covered in sweat. When the recording ended, she took several seconds to recover enough to look around at the others in the conference room. Armsmaster was fixedly staring at the now blank screen, several people had their eyes closed, one had fainted, and the rest were looking terrified.

"And _that_, yet again, is why we do not upset Overkill, ladies and gentlemen," she said through a dry throat as she reached for a glass of water. "That was her _having fun with her dad."_

She glanced at Tagg, who was white and shaking. "You get the point, you incredible asshole?"

He nodded silently. She was fairly certain his pants were damp.

"Nice of her to send us a copy of the video," Assault eventually commented in a high-pitched voice.

Looking at him, Emily merely shook her head before getting up to go and get drunk. Again.


	17. Omake - DOOM R&R

_This is the result of an idea that originated on Discord, and wouldn't let me get back to writing the things I am actually working on until I got it out of the way. So you get some wordz _:D

* * *

Crickets chirped in the night, the sound covering the more distant noises coming from miles away of cars on the interstate. Other than that it was as quiet as the grave, appropriately enough considering the location.

A light breeze added a faint susurrus to the ambiance as it moved the leaves of the trees and whispered through the grass of the unkempt and ill-maintained cemetery, disturbing the flowers left at a couple of fresher burial plots. A rabbit, hopping through the undergrowth, froze at the sound, ears alert and nose twitching, then relaxed and continued about its business.

Shortly afterwards, it stilled once more, immobile and staring as a misty dark pink cloud appeared out of nowhere in among the crypts. The strange manifestation was completely silent, but radiated a certain menace that even a simple animal could easily pick up on.

A second or two later a tall figure stepped out of the cloud, appearing as if it had walked around a corner that wasn't there in a manner that would have made a human observer wince. The heavily armored arrival looked around, the matte purple helmet moving from side to side, then it pulled out some sort of device from somewhere and inspected the thing briefly, before nodding and turning to the north, in the direction of the center of the town on whose outskirts this resting place of the dead lay. It studied the scanning device again, then put it away, before raising its hands to its helmet and removing it with a faint click.

Once the helmet was lifted clear, it revealed a young woman with long wavy black hair and piercing green eyes which moved across the dark scene, not apparently having any trouble with the night and the lack of illumination, only relieved by a thin shard of moon high above. She sniffed, then smiled slightly.

The rabbit moved a tiny amount, then froze again as the armored young woman snapped her head around so fast it wasn't even a blur, to stare directly at it in the long grass with unerring accuracy. Then she smiled faintly.

"Hello, bunny," she said very quietly, looking at the animal, which peered back, before twitching and spinning around then hopping away. The woman watched it go with mild amusement for a moment or two. Eventually she tucked her helmet under her arm and pulled out her scanner once more, flicking a couple of controls with her thumb and looking at the results with interest.

"Huh. Worth investigating, I guess," she mumbled to herself. "I could do with a nice relaxing vacation anyway. Let's see what that is."

Having made a note of the direction to what her instruments indicated was some sort of dimensional breach, she put the device back in her armor and began walking through the graveyard, looking around with an air of one who's seen it before and wasn't impressed the first time. As she walked she put her helmet back on.

Eventually she left the unusually large cemetery and found herself on a road which led towards the main part of the town, street lights in the distance illuminating the horizon with a dim glow. Glancing up at the sign at the entrance, she read it, then shrugged.

"Sunnydale. Never heard of it."

She turned her back on her arrival point and casually walked on, her power armor making surprisingly quiet but menacingly heavy footsteps in the dark.

* * *

Half an hour later, a head poked out of the still-there pink mist, looking around with quick motions. It wasn't even slightly human, glowing eyes inspecting the landscape with caution and intelligence. Seconds later it vanished again.

A short period later and it came back, complete with the thing it was part of, who was at the head of a procession of even more bizarre figures who followed it as it headed deeper into the graveyard. When the last of them was clear, the mist faded from view. The night returned to quiet and calm.

Until the screaming began a couple of hours later, much of it underground in the extensive network of tunnels that underlay the entire area.

* * *

"What are _you_ supposed to be?"

The voice came from a dark alley Taylor was walking past, causing her to slow as two figures emerged into the pool of light produced by a nearby streetlamp. She'd been aware of them for some time, and knew there were others in the area, including three more down the same alley.

Stopping, she looked them up and down as they did the same to her. Both appeared more or less human but clearly weren't as they had no real biosigns as far as her armor's sensors were concerned, read as ambient temperature, and had deformed faces. She could see elongated incisors in the mouth of the one that had spoken, who was roughly as tall as she was but about twice as wide, dressed in clothing that would have been in style in the sixties at the latest. His companion was shorter and skinnier, and was wearing a baseball cap backwards over slicked back hair. Both of them had somewhat puzzled expressions on their faces, easily discernible even past the distortions caused by whatever was wrong with them.

She smiled a little inside her helmet. They felt almost like some of the things she encountered in her travels but far less interesting and so weak it was laughable. The sad part was that based on their body language they thought themselves to be predators.

It was rather amusing in a way.

"Halloween was months ago," the same one said after a few seconds, smirking at her as he tried to look through her faceplate. "Nice costume, though."

"Thank you," she replied politely. "What did _you_ go as?"

The creature stared at her, then laughed loudly. "Ha. A sense of humor. Won't help, but that was pretty funny, girl."

She shrugged and resumed walking. Both of them stepped out in front of her, causing her to stop again, then sigh faintly. "Really? What do you want?"

He leered at her. "Maybe see what's inside the wrapping?" he replied, reaching out for her shoulder.

Taylor calmly broke his arm at the elbow, then said, "Don't touch the armor. No one touches the armor."

The creature recoiled, his right arm hanging limply, echoes of the meaty crack dying away in the quiet streets. Which were far quieter than seemed plausible, she mused as she watched to see what would happen next. "Bitch!" he screamed in pain. "That fucking _hurt!_" Grabbing his arm he massaged it, exchanged a look with his companion, then both of them lunged at her.

Sidestepping she grabbed him by the top of the head and gently squeezed, the result being a sound best described as a mix between '_crunch_' and '_pop_.' The headless corpse stumbled a single further step then flashed into a cloud of dust which settled to the ground with a very quiet hiss.

"Oh, shit," the second one managed to say before she punched him in the back hard enough to send him flying about eighty feet into the side of a parked truck, which rocked on its suspension and vibrated with a loud clang. He slid down the now-dented side, landing on the street on his face, then slowly climbed to his feet shaking his head. When he turned to look at her he just had time to have his eyes widen before a low-power shot from her plasma rifle turned him to an expanding cloud of vapor, the shot also punching a hole completely through the truck behind him.

"Oops," she muttered, somewhat embarrassed, then looked down at the weapon and made a couple of adjustments. "Too much power. Drop it another, hmm, forty percent maybe?"

Pointing the gun to the side she pulled the trigger three times, the shots going down the alley. "Yeah, that works. Hardly any collateral damage at all."

Satisfied, she put the weapon away again and resumed her pace, while three piles of dust settled out behind her.

"I wonder what those things were?" she said to herself as she walked, following the readings on her scanner which she consulted every now and then. "Meh. Not important. Neat the way they dispose of themselves though."

* * *

"Just what I wanted," Drusilla softly said, holding Spike's hand, as she stared at the horned blue demon. Looking up at her from his wheelchair, the blond vampire smiled a little, before going back to examining the newly-resurrected Judge.

As he was about to say something, a brilliant orange-yellow fireball came over his head from the direction of the down to the tunnels below them, impacting on the Judge who didn't even have a chance to say anything. The demon exploded into gibbets of steaming meat as all the vampires present froze in shock, then as one turned to look to where whatever it was had come from.

**"We serve HER will,"** the _huge_ and vastly more impressively horned creature standing behind half a dozen human-sized brownish creatures remarked with a nasty grin on his face.** "We deal with the minor problems that are beneath HER notice, so that she might concentrate on the more important ones."**

"What the fuck are _you?"_ Spike shouted. He was furious, but also looking warily at the smaller demonic figures, two of which were holding fireballs in their hands and clearly ready to fire. He'd never seen or heard of either type of demon before, which was worrying.

The large one stared at him for a second or two, then laughed in a deep unsettling voice. **"We are HERS to command. SHE leads, we follow, and all join her or fall before her might." **It took a step closer, its huge hooves clomping on the stone floor, and raised a hand which began to glow green. Spike's eyes widened in horror.** "Unfortunately for _you_, vermin are unworthy of HER."**

The last thing any of them saw was a green fireball the size of a car.

* * *

Giles walked out of his office, where Buffy was napping with her head resting on her folded arms, to meet Angel walking down the stairs from the stacks. As he was half-way through asking a question, he was interrupted by the vampire suddenly stiffening, raising his eyes from the book he was holding to the door out of the library. The Watcher quickly turned to look in the same direction. "What is it?" he said urgently, well aware how much better than human Angel's hearing was.

"Footsteps," Angel replied in a low voice, sounding worried. "Heavy ones."

"The Judge?" Giles was appalled. "Here? Now?"

"I don't know," the other man said, closing the book and dropping it to the table, then heading for the door. Everyone stopped what they were doing as they became aware something was wrong. Quickly moving back into his office Giles grabbed an ax from under one of his desks and went back into the main room, just in time to see Angel's body come flying through the doorway, removing one of the doors from its hinges en route. Xander and Cordelia ducked as the vampire went overhead and slammed into the book cage with a crash that shook the room, then dropped to the floor.

"Good lord," Giles stammered, watching in shock, then turned as solid footsteps became audible, moving at a completely even pace towards the library from the corridor outside. The entire group of people tore their horrified attention from the groaning vampire on the floor and also looked back at the door.

A moment later they recoiled in shock as a tall figure wearing some sort of high tech matte purple armor appeared in the entrance, lifting a hand to casually brush the remaining door half out of the way, while the other hand was occupied with a small device that was emitting a series of chirping sounds and blinking a display of some sort. The new arrival's entire attention was on the thing as it entered the library, ignoring everyone present aside from stepping over Xander who had hit the deck when Angel came past.

"Excuse me," it said absently, sounding like a young woman. She waved the little device around slowly, the sounds coming and going, until she stopped with it pointing at the far side of the room.

Directly at the capped Hell Mouth, Giles realized with a sinking sensation.

"Aha!" she exclaimed, sounding pleased. "_There_ it is." She moved towards it.

Angel, who had recovered from what must have been an enormous impact, climbed painfully to his feet then lunged at her with his entire unnatural speed and power.

Without looking at him she back-handed him so fast and so hard that Giles couldn't even track the motion, the vampire abruptly reversing course and ending up right back where he'd begun, with another crash. The armored woman completely ignored him and walked over to the large table that was sitting on top of the cap, then easily slid it to the side with a screech from the legs on the floor. She showed no sign of effort from shifting something so heavy it normally took half a dozen people to handle.

"What do we do, Giles?" Willow said in a hoarse whisper, behind her hand, as she stared fixedly at the armored woman, who was now bending over examining the cap closely. "Who is that? Some sort of demon?" Jenny was standing next to the girl, gaping at the purple armor with a look of complete disbelief on her face, while Xander had got to his hands and knees and quickly crawled over to Cordelia, both teenagers now hiding behind one of the other tables and watching cautiously.

"I don't know, nor do I know who or what that is." He shook his head, frantically going over every demon he could think of to try to identify their unwelcome visitor. None he could think of used armor of this nature. It looked, aside from anything else, more like some form of technology than something magic-based, although his own mystical senses were screaming that it was radiating a sort of magical energy that utterly dwarfed anything he'd ever experienced in his life. Even in his wild younger years.

"Hmm. Crap job, it's leaking like crazy," the woman commented as she ran another device over the seal. He couldn't work out where she'd got it from or where the first one had gone. "Dimensional flux is unstable too. Whoever did this has no idea how do it properly." She didn't seem to be talking to _them_, it was more like she was making notes to herself. "I knew this would come in handy sooner or later, though." She produced yet another widget, this one in a shape that was hard to look at. "Crazy reptiles know their stuff, unlike whoever did this," she mumbled, making some adjustments on the whatever-it-was while glancing between it and the seal.

Giles had a very bad feeling about what was going on.

"Demon! Get away from there!" Everyone jumped as Buffy came zooming out of the office, having apparently just become aware of what was going on, and launched herself at the armored woman in a flying high kick.

And immediately found herself dangling from one ankle which was held in the armored gauntlet of the woman, who had straightened, turned, and lashed out so quickly the movement made the Slayer look like she was moving in slow motion. Giles gaped in complete shock, not having _ever_ seen anything living react that quickly. It was far faster than even a Slayer could move.

"Hey, stop that," the woman said mildly, lifting the much shorter blonde to eye level. "I'm busy. If you want to fight, it'll have to wait." She lowered Buffy to the floor again and let go, the girl tucking into a roll instantly and rebounding towards the armored woman in a blur of lethal blows.

"What did I just say?" the woman sighed, grabbing Buffy by the clothing and lifting her clear of the floor again. The girl lashed out with hands and feet, which achieved absolutely nothing.

"Holy shit," Giles heard Xander say in a tone of wonderment. "Who _is_ that?"

"Look, if you want to play, I'm game, but I really am busy right now, so if you could just calm down that would help, OK?" Whoever was in the armor walked over to a chair and firmly put Buffy, who was going red with fury and still kicking and punching the arm holding her without any effect at all, in it. "Sit. Stay. Good girl."

She let go and turned around, then sighed heavily as Buffy was suddenly on her back, trying to unscrew her head.

"Really? Can't I go on vacation without idiots attacking me all over the place?" the woman grumbled as she unpeeled the furious blonde, then casually kicked Angel in the stomach as he again attacked her from the other side. For the third time he slammed into the wall then dropped on the floor, this time on his back, looking dazed. Buffy shrieked in rage and struggled harder, to no avail whatsoever. "Weird deformed dead people all over the place, this idiot, and blondie with anger management issues," she went on, holding Buffy in the air with one hand while she felt over her armor with the other one. "Which, coming from me, is hilarious. Ah." She produced a small gun-like device and pointed it at the struggling blonde girl, then fired it before anyone could do anything.

There was a faint hiss and a moment later Buffy relaxed completely, a smile on her face. "Better," the woman said in satisfaction. "This time just sit there, all right?" She put Buffy back into the chair, then let go, before quickly grabbing her again as she threatened to slide out of it. "Whoops. Dose was a _little _too high," she remarked to the room at large. "Oh well. She's got a fast metabolism, it'll be fine."

"I can see everything," Buffy said in a dreamy voice. "It's made of lizards."

The entire room, including Angel, stared at her.

She giggled. "So pretty..."

"Yeah… _Definitely_ too high a dose," the woman finally said, shaking her head. She patted Buffy on the shoulder then went back to the Hell Mouth and resumed fiddling with the odd looking device.

"Who _are_ you?" Cordelia erupted, standing up from where she and Xander had been hiding. The boy put his hand over his eyes and remained where he was.

Turning to her, the armored woman looked at her for a moment. "My name's Taylor," she replied without rancor. "I'm not local. Just passing through. I needed a little relaxation and this dimension seems interesting." Then she went back to whatever it was that she was doing.

"Ah… What are you doing, Taylor?" Giles asked very carefully. "And for that matter, what did you do to Buffy?"

"Buffy?" The woman who called herself Taylor glanced at him, the lights reflecting from her golden visor in a way that was rather unnerving, then looked at the inanely grinning blonde who seemed to be fascinated by her own fingers. "Really? Huh. It's just a mild tranquilizer gas. People I picked it up from use it for non-lethal takedowns. Seems pretty effective." She chuckled a little. "She's going to _really_ want a drink of water when it wears off though. And she might be missing a few minutes. It's safe otherwise."

"I see," Giles replied, lying through his teeth. _None_ of this made any sense whatsoever. "And your purpose here in this room?"

Taylor indicated the Hell Mouth cap. "Picked up the signature of a dimensional breach, thought I'd come and have a look at it. I've seen something like this before and it was good fun sorting it out." She sounded almost eager, in a way that made his blood run cold.

"That's a portal to hell itself, you crazy woman," Cordelia screamed.

"Hell?" Taylor looked at her, then down at the seal, before reaching up and pulling her helmet off. The face under it was of someone perhaps nineteen or so, with eyes that were much too old but sparking with a bizarre sort of humor and high intelligence. "Yeah, no. It's not Hell, I can guarantee you _that_. I'd know. It's just a parallel micro-universe full of hostile and xenophobic kind of aliens. I've seen that before. They're really entertaining for a while," she explained patiently, holding up the device which was even more difficult to look at now. "Not much of a challenge but sometimes it's amusing to have endless waves of enemies coming at you, you know?"

She looked somehow nostalgic for a second, if a grin that horrifying could be termed as such.

"Anyway, I'll just pop this thing open and I'll be out of your hair," she went on, putting her helmet on the table next to her, then raising the device in her hand.

A crossbow bolt hit her in the back of the head.

Everyone turned to see Angel holding the crossbow it had come from, then turned back to look at Taylor, who had apparently not actually noticed.

"Oh, shit," the vampire said very quietly indeed.

"_There_ we are. Got the resonant frequency locked, so all I have to do is find the second harmonic and put it in antiphase, then ramp up the gain, and..." She prodded the thing. A deep rumble made the room vibrate, while a very high pitched whine like an angry mosquito accompanied it.

The floor smoked inside the seal, then it cracked. Otherworldly light spread upwards from the ground, filling the room with an unholy glow.

Taylor smiled widely, lit from beneath with reddish illumination. She bent over the widening opening, peering down with an expression of interest, as everyone else simply observed, unable to think of anything to do in the face of completely insane armored women from nowhere. "Oh, cool, that's even better than I hoped," she exclaimed happily. Making the device vanish, she picked up her helmet and put it on, the thing sealing with a click, then was suddenly holding an _enormous_ gun unlike anything any of them had ever seen before.

Buffy pointed at it and giggled.

"See you later," the mad woman called, then dived head first into the gaping Hell Mouth with a whoop.

A couple of seconds after that there was a screech of rage that made the entire building shake. Glass shattered somewhere.

The Hell Mouth slammed shut with a boom.

Silence fell.

Nearly five minutes went past with not a single sound from any of them.

Then Buffy hiccuped. "_Wow_, I'm thirsty," she commented brightly, shaking her head as they all looked at her. "Hey, what's going on? Why are you looking at me like that? Giles, you broke your glasses!"

He looked down at the distorted mess in his hand, then sighed.

A very faint roar came from somewhere he couldn't pinpoint, making Buffy cock her head and look around for a moment. "Did anyone else hear that?"

Angel put the crossbow on the table, then sat down next to it and stared at the Hell Mouth with a completely blank expression. Giles went into his office to look for his spare glasses.

"Why does my mouth feel like I ate a pound of sand?" Buffy complained. "Yuck. Gross."

He wondered how much scotch he could add to his tea before anyone noticed.


	18. Omake - DOOM R&R: The Cleansing

_This amused me sufficiently that I found another part to it lurking behind the sofa. Enjoy it ;)  
_

* * *

Xander ducked as Buffy flew overhead, spun once, and bounced off a dumpster with a loud hollow bong sound. "Uh oh," he yelped, looking around frantically, then diving to the side as the huge furry demon who had punted the Slayer came roaring out of the basement opening in the old abandoned building directly at her. "Holy frak!" he screamed in shock, convinced he was going to die horribly, even as he fumbled with the aluminum baseball bat he'd brought.

About to swing it so at least he could say he died fighting, he aborted the motion when the eight foot tall whateverthefuckitwas demon hurdled him like he was utterly irrelevant and kept going, charging down the pot-holed road without looking back. It was running like it was completely terrified of something…

The thought entered his mind and made him stop dead, not even glancing at Buffy who was swearing under her breath as she painfully levered herself out of the massive dent in the dumpster. Then he slowly turned his head back towards the dark opening in the side of the decrepit factory they'd followed the traces of their quarry towards.

_What_ would make a huge demon run like it was scared to death?

Movement in the darkness resolved into something horrible. Behind him, Buffy squeaked in shock. Xander couldn't even do that.

The answer to his question floated out of the rusty loading door, the single vast green glowing eye set into the upper middle of the creature flicking to him, then the Slayer, before scanning the area. Yellow-white fangs the length of his forearm stuck up at the sides of a mouth large enough to swallow a cow whole, and were joined with a forest of smaller but still horrifically big and extremely sharp looking dentition. He had no idea _what_ the fuck the thing was, but it was hanging in the air a good yard off the ground like gravity didn't apply to it, and gave off an air of danger that outweighed anything he'd ever encountered before.

A long forked tongue flicked out and retreated, taking with it what he dimly realized was something that looked an awful lot like a large hairy hand, that had been hanging half out of the huge mouth.

Yeah, that demon that nearly ran him down had a damn good excuse for leaving the area with all possible speed, he thought rather hysterically, afraid to even twitch.

After a moment, the thing floated closer, enough light coming from the flashlight he'd dropped in his dive to show it was a dull red color like congealed blood. A couple of limbs that he thought were more or less arms hung under it, long talons tipping attenuated fingers that twitched a little. He took shallow terrified breaths, trying not to pass out from fear and attempting to come up with some way to escape his oncoming doom.

Behind him, he heard Buffy shuffle around, and suddenly realized that she was about to attack this thing. Before he could advise her to stay still, because it was _clearly_ not the thing they'd been after and just as clearly was far, far more dangerous, she let out a scream of rage and ran at it, wielding a sword that she'd brought for the occasion. "Die, demon!" she yelled as she swung at it.

Xander winced as the thing spun to face her, moving much faster than something that big should be able to, and raised both underslung arms.

Then he blinked as it casually caught her sword in one hand and her torso in the other, the long fingers going almost all the way around her. Lifting her off the ground without the slightest sign of effort, it held her up in front of it and examined her, even as she shouted in rage and kicked it in the teeth without anything useful happening.

**"You smell of HER,"** it rumbled in the deepest voice Xander had ever encountered, sounding like James Earl Jones at the bottom of a well. **"SHE has permitted you to live. We follow HER will."**

Then it dropped her to the ground, handed her the sword, and while she was gaping in disbelief, moved carefully around her and towards Xander.

He stared up at it as it paused a few feet away, looking down at him with what was almost curiosity. "Ah..." He couldn't help himself. "It went that way?" His voice broke in a squeak as he pointed in the direction the fleeing demon had run.

**"Gratitude," **the thing growled, as it tipped slightly in mid air like some weird nod, then floated over him and quickly moved off in the same direction.

Buffy and Xander both watched as it vanished around the corner a couple of hundred feet away, then looked at each other. "What just happened?" he said in a completely baffled voice.

The blonde shrugged, looking totally bemused. "I have no idea," she replied, then rubbed her back with a wince before looking at her hands. "And I've got yuck all over me. Again."

She wiped her hands on her jeans then heaved him to his feet. Both of them turned to look at the impenetrable darkness inside the old factory. Xander bent down and retrieved his flashlight, turning it that way. Deep inside there was a flicker of green, as if reflected from a huge eye. Or, more accurately, several huge eyes.

One of them blinked.

He turned the light off with a flick of his finger and looked at Buffy, who was pale enough that it was easily visible even in the dim lighting. "I vote we go tell Giles," he said brightly. "No sense just rushing in, right?"

After a few seconds, she shivered and tore her gaze away from the black opening. "No, that would be of the stupid," she replied in a voice somewhat higher than usual. "I think you're right. Let's go tell Giles."

"Good idea." He nodded rapidly. "Very good idea." After a short pause, he added, "Let's go quickly, OK?"

Both teenagers turned around and very rapidly walked off, Buffy looking quite unusually worried.

Neither of them looked back. Not even, or more accurately, _especially_, when something with a very deep voice somewhere behind them chuckled quietly, before going silent again.

They _did_ move rather faster after that though.

* * *

"What the hell is going on, Giles?" Buffy demanded urgently as she stormed into the library, Xander following her and looking bewildered. The Watcher turned away from the conversation he'd been having with Willow and Cordelia, both girls surrounded with old books and copious notes, to see his Slayer looking very pale and worried which wasn't like her. She tended towards overconfidence if anything, a common problem with Slayers in general. But now she appeared quite worried and more thoughtful than was normal, as well as angry.

"What do you mean, Buffy?" he inquired, removing his glasses as he spoke.

"Some grody floating ball thing just told me I smell!" she snapped. "After it picked me up like I was a barbie or something! And it took my sword away!"

"It gave the sword back though," Xander pointed out, although he wasn't smiling.

"That's not the point!" she shouted. "Where does a giant floating ball with teeth get off telling me I stink?"

Giles looked between them, then massaged the bridge of his nose. "Perhaps you could calm down, Buffy, and tell me exactly what happened?"

She took a couple of deep breaths, then exhaled slowly. "Yeah. OK. We were following those footprints we found, the ones that you said were from some Gingivitis demon?"

He sighed. "Gingarl demon."

She snapped her fingers and pointed at him. "That thing. Yes. We tracked it to the old factory on Wilson Street. Xander said we should come back and tell you but I said I could go in and get it since there was only one Ginger demon and it didn't look all that tough, then _he_ said that's what I said the last time and I got thrown through a wall, but that was only because I got distracted, so..."

Giles, Willow, and Cordelia were all staring at her. That was almost worthy of Willow herself. The blonde girl was obviously more rattled than she let on.

"Yes, I assume you did indeed go inside, even though Xander had a point?" Giles prompted when she paused for breath.

"Of course I did," she responded. "I had my sword with me, and I was sure I could take it. So Xander waited outside in case someone else turned up and I followed it inside. Then..." She stopped again, looking a little puzzled. "There was a weird sound, somewhere way inside the place. The Gimpy demon screamed and ran at me, and _kicked_ me. I mean, what sort of demon does _that?_ A football demon? Are there football demons?"

"Not to my knowledge, no," he sighed.

"Anyway, it took me by surprise and I didn't duck fast enough, and it kicked me right out the door and into a dumpster and I broke a nail," she complained, showing him her left hand. "_And_ I ruined another pair of jeans. Then it..."

"Ran like a little girl," Xander put in, having taken a seat next to Cordelia and put his bat on the table. He looked worried and thoughtful, Giles noticed.

"Yeah. It just came zipping out of the factory like it was on fire, jumped over Xander, and legged it. It was really weird." Buffy shook her head. "What came out after it was way weirder."

"This other demon?" he prompted.

"I don't know _what_ it was," she replied. "I've never seen anything like it, not even in your books. It was enormous, and it was _floating_."

"Floating?" he echoed, trying to think of a floating demon. Nothing came to mind immediately.

"Yep. Just hanging there like it was on a string. It looked at us, then I attacked it."

"Of course you did," he sighed. "And what was the result?"

She scowled.

"It grabbed her like she was a little kid and took her sword away," Xander said, almost looking amused for a second as he glanced at the boy. "Just casually snagged her as she jumped it. Then it..."

"Then it told me I smelled," she growled.

"It was more complicated than that," Xander remarked.

"In what way?" Giles asked.

The young man frowned a little. "It said..." He cleared his throat, then put on the deepest voice he could manage. **"You smell of HER. SHE has permitted you to live. We follow HER will." **Then he coughed violently, before gasping, "Only about four octaves lower."

"Then it put me down again, gave me my sword back, and floated away," Buffy complained. "Xander pointed out where the other one had gone and it thanked him and went in the same direction."

The Watcher looked between them for a few seconds. Neither appeared to be either under the influence of anything nor attempting to be funny, as far as he could see.

"It… _thanked_ Xander?" he carefully repeated.

"Yeah. It said, um, what was it?" she replied, looking at Xander.

"It said '_Gratitude_' and wandered off," the young man said. "Quick too. It was out of sight in a few seconds." He swallowed, before adding, "I'm pretty sure there were more of them inside the factory. I pointed the flashlight inside and we could see… eyes."

"Lots of eyes," Buffy said uneasily. "Big ones. Looking at us in the dark."

There was a long silence in the library.

"Something really weird is going on around here," Willow finally said, sounding very worried. "Buffy hasn't dusted a vamp in a week. She can't even _find_ a vamp. Hardly any demons seem to be around either and Sunnydale is demon central normally. We practically trip over them sometimes! But now they're all gone, or nearly all gone anyway. Ever since..."

She glanced at the table sitting over the sealed Hell Mouth. Everyone else looked in the same direction.

"Since that crazy woman jumped in there," Cordelia finished for her. Willow nodded.

"Yeah. Maybe she did something?"

"She must have been horribly killed in seconds," the cheerleader said, somewhat doubtfully.

"I'm not sure about that," Willow said, uneasily. "You saw what happened same as we all did. Angel shot her in the _head_ with a _crossbow_ and she didn't even _notice!_ That's..." She trailed off, then added weakly, "Weird."

Buffy was looking between them and Giles. The Slayer was still doubting their story of what had happened on that very peculiar night as whatever drug had been used on her by the woman in power armor who called herself '_Taylor Hebert_' seemed to have made several minutes of her memory get extremely foggy. "I can't believe that someone actually opened the _Hell Mouth_ and _jumped in_," she grumbled. "And that you _let_ her do it, Giles."

He glared at her. "I could hardly stop her, Buffy. She went through Angel as easily as _you_ would deal with a normal human, if not more so, and you yourself were completely unable to prevail against her. Whatever she is, she is _extremely_ dangerous and not to be taken lightly, that much I can assure you."

"Do we know anything else about her?" Xander asked.

"No. Jenny has used her own skills with those infernal computers in an attempt to discern more information on the woman, if indeed she _is_ a woman, to no avail. Apparently no one has any records of a '_Taylor Hebert'_ anywhere in the country. At least one who is approximately twenty years old and female. On the other hand we have no proof that she is even human at all. Based on what we saw, I rather doubt it myself." He shook his head slightly. "I have made inquiries to the Council to see if there are any other records available but so far nothing has come to light."

"Angel has asked around as well but he can't find any information either," Willow added. "And I've looked in every place I can think of too. Nothing. Zip. Nada. No sign of her."

"All right." Giles picked up a notebook and pen. "Tell me _exactly_ what happened, and describe this… floating demon… as accurately as you can."

The pair spent the next fifteen minutes describing the encounter and answering questions until he was sure he'd extracted as much information on what they'd seen and experienced as possible. He made a quick sketch based on their description and studied it closely when they confirmed it was accurate.

"This does not resemble any demon I am familiar with," he finally said with annoyance, putting the notebook down. Willow pulled it closer and inspected the sketch with interest, Cordelia looking over her shoulder as the normal animosity the pair tended to exhibit disappeared for the moment. The dark haired girl, despite her carefully cultivated air of dismissive vapidness, was actually rather intelligent and a much better person than many would believe, Giles had come to realize. She was also surprisingly effective at the research side of their little operation.

"I've never seen any pictures like this either," Willow finally said. "I wonder how it floats? Magic, I guess."

"I would assume so but without knowing what it is, who can say," Giles commented, while absently polishing his replacement glasses and thinking hard. "The aspect of this which worries me the most isn't that there is an unknown type of demon in Sunnydale, but there are more than one of them. That implies… something possibly very bad."

"Where are they coming from?" Buffy asked. "And why was it chasing that other one? And why did it say I smelled?"

"It said you smelled of _her_," Xander remarked. He looked at Buffy, then Giles. "Who is _'her?_'"

After several seconds, all of them slowly looked around at the Hell Mouth. "You don't think..." the boy began.

Giles sighed. "I fear that the likelihood of two unusual events in close succession, especially in Sunnydale, being unconnected is slim at best," he replied heavily. "And it would fit, I'm afraid, although what it means I have no idea yet. If that floating demon detected the presence of our visitor the other night and decided that it meant you two were not to be touched, that is both good and bad. Good as in you are still alive."

"Alive is indeed good," Xander agreed fervently.

"Quite. And bad… bad as in why would a number of floating demons that are so frightening that _other demons_ run from them be so respectful of an apparently human woman that merely detecting her scent or whatever it really is that they noticed be enough to make them leave you alone to begin with? Especially after you attacked one of them."

"She can't be human," Cordelia pointed out.

"I suspect not. Although what she is, I have absolutely no idea. And of course as she is on the other side of the Hell Mouth, we are unlikely to be able to discover that," he nodded.

"How many of those things are out there?" Xander asked somewhat uneasily.

"Too many," a voice from the door said, making them all look to see a very ragged-appearing Angel standing there. He looked like he'd gone several rounds with a wood-chipper with a bad attitude and was clearly barely able to stand up.

"Angel!" Buffy cried, jumping to her feet and rushing over, then helping him to a chair.

"What on earth happened to you, Angel?" Giles asked in astonishment.

"Something about nine feet tall and built like a cross between a tank and a minotaur," the vampire replied painfully, wincing as Buffy carefully took his leather jacket off. The garment was virtually shredded and fell to pieces in the process. Despite his ambivalence towards the man, Giles was sorry to see him so thoroughly damaged. It appeared that something had given him a severe beating, but done so carefully enough to cause no permanent damage, which was horribly impressive towards a vampire of his age and skill.

"I don't know what they are or where they came from, but the tunnels under Sunnydale are _swarming_ with the things," he went on. "There are almost no vampires left in the entire city at the moment. I was trying to find out why. I found out." He almost laughed, although there was a haunted look about his eyes, which was worrying. "Those things have taken them all out. They're systematically hunting down vampires, hostile demons, and anything else that's a threat."

"Hunting them?" Giles repeated. "How?"

"I don't know _how_ they're doing it, but most of them can use some sort of fireball spell or something like that. Much more powerful than anything I've ever seen. There are at least two dozen different types of them, ranging from ones about the size of a human to something big enough that it would scare an Old One, and they're incredibly dangerous," he replied with a shiver, clearly highly disturbed. "And there are _thousands_ of them. They're smart too. They're not just attacking randomly, they're systematically sweeping the entire underground, using careful tactics and strategy. And they ignore all the demons who aren't a threat."

He sighed. "I spotted one of the little ones and followed it to the cemetery, then into one of the old crypts that has a way down into the tunnels. Now I think it knew I was there the entire time, and it _led_ me there. I thought it was alone, but suddenly I was in one of the larger caverns and they were _everywhere_. All of them looking at me. And this big one came over, looked at me, laughed, told me I was lucky that _SHE_ wouldn't want me dealt with like the rest since _SHE_ had spared me, then kicked the _shit_ out of me." He prodded his face, hissing in pain. "Very professionally. Then it told a couple of the little ones to take my up to the street and toss me out. Which they did."

He looked seriously at Giles, then Buffy. "I don't know what they are, but I can tell you that they're nothing like you've faced before. You can't take them on with a sword. The little ones, maybe, you might be able to kill one or two, but there are too many of them to deal with like that and they're _fast_. Much faster than even a vampire. Those fireballs they use… If one of those hit you, it would kill you no question. The big ones… I don't think there'd be anything left at all." After a moment, he added, "I'm also pretty sure that Spike and Drusilla are dead. And they got the Judge too, from what I saw. Nothing left but little bits of charcoal."

Giles stared at him, torn between incredulity and hope. "Are you certain?"

Angel shrugged, then winced again. "As sure as I can be. I found where they'd definitely been staying and it was completely slagged. The boxes the parts of the Judge were in, or what was left of them, were there too. The whole room looked like it had been gone over with a flamethrower for about an hour. Everything was melted and even the surfaces of the stones were glass. But what was left of Spike's wheelchair was there, along with some of the stuff I know he had. I'm pretty convinced that these things found them and solved that problem for us."

Sitting down, his glasses forgotten in his hand, Giles gaped slightly as Buffy used the medical kit to clean up some of the vampire's abrasions. "Good lord."

"Are they the good guys, then?" Willow asked, sounding very confused and quite frightened.

"They're _demons,_ Willow," Cordelia said, although she also sounded puzzled.

"Yeah, but there are good demons, right? Maybe these guys are good demons too." The red-head looked around at them, trying to appear positive. "They're killing off all the bad demons, so that makes them good, I mean."

"Or they don't like the competition," Xander remarked, an odd expression on his face. They looked at him, then each other.

"I wish that I could say you're wrong but I can't quite dismiss the thought, much as I'd like to," Giles finally sighed. "It is possible that they have some ulterior motive for being here and removing the other demons is part of that plan."

"What do we do about it?" Buffy asked, closing the medical kit and turning to him.

"I have no idea at present," he admitted.

The room very gently heaved, making various things rattle. Everyone looked around, then twitched at a faint but vast scream of anger and fear, which seemed to come from below.

Xander peered at the floor. "Sounds like that crazy woman is still going," he commented with a confused grin.

**"SHE is consumed with Rage and Joy as SHE cleanses the lower realm," **a gravelly voice said unexpectedly, making them all whip around and stare at the main entrance. **"We serve HER will, and await HER triumphant return from scouring the unworthy from existence. While we wait, we act in HER name to remove those irritants that are beneath HER notice. For SHE is the DOOM QUEEN, rightful Heir to Hell, and the true ruler of the Umbral Plains. All who act against HER fall before HER might, yet SHE is merciful towards those who show respect to HER Glory and Power."**

The massively tall creature standing in the doorway on two hooved legs smiled grimly at them. It was so large its horns brushed the ceiling, and Giles, even through a gut-wrenching terror that dwarfed anything he'd experienced heretofore couldn't help but wonder how on earth the bloody thing had managed to sneak up on them like that.

**"You are marked by HER presence. Rejoice, for you will live." **It added this in a somewhat amused tone of voice, then looked directly at Angel, who swallowed. **"We are watching, small parasite. Do not give HER reason to withdraw HER mercy." **The enormous demon pointed two fingers at its own eyes, then at him. It smiled again, showing a lot of teeth, made a small bow towards the room at large, and turned away.

**"SHE will return when SHE has finished HER work,"** it remarked over its shoulder in a rather casual manner, then it vanished out the door, which closed behind it. Oddly quiet but very heavy footsteps that they'd completely missed before retreated down the corridor, until it was silent again.

Some time later, Giles looked down and realized that he'd crushed another pair of glasses.

"He was polite for a demon," Cordelia said in a very squeaky voice, before passing out over Willow, who yelped as the taller girl nearly pushed her to the floor.

Giles looked at them, then Xander who was staring at the door, his face pale, then turned to Buffy and Angel. The blonde girl was holding the vampire's hand so tightly Giles could hear bones creaking from across the library. Angel himself had a look on his face that suggested that even if he could sleep he would never do so again.

"I would suggest that it would probably be sensible _not_ to venture into any dark areas for the foreseeable future," he said quietly. "We have been given a warning we might not get again."

Angel looked at the door for a moment, then back at him, before nodding. "I think that's a good idea," he replied in an uneven voice.

Standing up, Giles went into his office and shut the door, put his destroyed glasses next to the first set, dug out his _backup_ backup ones and put them on, sat at his desk, and very deliberately pulled the half-empty bottle of scotch from the bottom drawer.

Looking at the shot glass that was still in there, he shook his head, unscrewed the lid, and took a long pull direct from the bottle.

Then he rather shakily started to write yet another report.


	19. Omake - DOOM R&R: Fallout

_ There **will **be more of the main story, I promise! However there has been quite a lot of work-related shenanigans for the last couple of weeks which has really got in the way of doing sustained writing sessions, so I can only snatch an hour or so here and there. Not wanting to waste it, I used todays hour to bring you more of this...;)_

* * *

After a faint but distinct click, a whirring sound was followed by seven echoing bongs as the two hundred year old and extremely valuable grandfather clock in the corner of the large wood-paneled room struck the hour, as it had been doing since it was installed there a month after it was made. None of the men gathered together paid any attention to it. Most of them were reading through a set of bound reports that had arrived only hours ago, and had been distributed to only those present for several reasons. Outside, three floors below and on the other side of very well soundproofed and heavily warded windows the evening traffic of London could barely be heard, while the sound of the currently torrential rain was entirely inaudible. Only the spatter on the windows in the darkness betrayed it to those inside.

One of the readers lowered the report, open to the last page, and looked at the only person there who wasn't reading. He had already done that, four times, with growing incredulity on each occasion.

"Umbral Plains?" the man said in a hoarse voice.

Quentin Travers nodded somberly.

"_Umbral Plains!?"_ his colleague repeated, much more loudly and in a voice that melded sheer horror with complete disbelief. "A demon unlike anything on record told the Sunnydale Watcher, our man on the spot literally on top of the single most active Hell Mouth on the entire _planet_, that he was an agent of the literal ruler of _the fucking _**_Umbral Plains?_**" The man, Charles Gifford, the senior Watcher's Council lore master and possibly the single most well read person on the subject of demonology in the world, was as white as a sheet and looking on the verge of a coronary.

"According to Watcher Giles, that is exactly what it said, yes," Travers acknowledged.

There was dead silence for a while, everyone else having stopped to listen, all of them looking disturbed in various ways, proportionate to their knowledge of what this might mean.

"May god protect us," Gifford finally breathed, dropping his head back on the expensive leather of the wingback chair he was sitting in and closing his eyes. "Do you have even the slightest understanding of the seriousness of this if the creature was being truthful?"

"I have a fairly good idea, I believe," Travers assured him, picking up the small glass of Scotch next to him and taking a small sip.

"I strongly suspect you in fact do _not_ or you wouldn't be sitting there drinking," Gifford retorted, his eyes still shut and his face so pale he looked positively unwell. "If this demon was indeed correct and not lying, we are in shit so deep we'd need a submarine to even _begin_ to find the bottom." He opened his eyes and lifted his head, while Travers looked mildly offended at his language. The other three people there exchanged glances, then went back to listening.

"The Umbral Plains are a legend. One so old we have no idea at all where it comes from. It predates _everything_. Literally everything we know, all legends of any species we have any information on. It's even older than the myth of the First Evil, older than the Old Ones, older than the _Big Bang itself_. Hardly anyone has ever heard of that phrase but the ones that have know what it truly means."

"Which is?" Travers took another sip, while studying the man talking.

"Literally Hell. Not the demonic realms on the other side of the Hell Mouth, as bad as they are. Not even the Christian version of it, or that of any other human religions, although they are all in various ways based on rumors which in turn are based on the legend of the Umbral Plains. No, we are discussing a place that is right at the bottom of creation itself, a place from which all that _is_ may have ultimately originated, quite likely before the universe even came into existence. And what _inhabits_ such a place..."

Gifford trailed off, looking sick. No one said anything while he swallowed a couple of times, then resumed.

"What inhabits such a place is the stuff of nightmare. True nightmare, making vampires and all that which we oppose look like a mild inconvenience by comparison. No, not even _that_ important. It is a candle flame next to the sun. The most trivial demon from the Umbral Plains could most likely defeat almost anything we know of with ease. Yes, legend says that they _can_ be killed, but it is phenomenally difficult even in the case of the lowest of the low. If one of the true Lords of Hell walks this earth, I know of nothing that could do more than annoy it. No Slayer in history would stand a chance. And there are things much, much worse there."

He shook his head, an unhealthy sallowness to his complexion. Travers had put his glass down and was sitting still, now looking rather less confident than he'd been minutes earlier.

"And if this visitor to the Hell Mouth is to be believed," Gifford finally continued after the silence had grown uncomfortable, only relieved by the steady ticking of the clock, "the actual literal Ruler of Hell is among us. Has opened the Hell Mouth and gone through it for reasons unknown. And has left an unknown number of her subjects wandering freely throughout the surrounding area." His voice was low and appalled, forcing them to listen carefully. "Watcher Giles's reports state that the Doom Queen, to use the demon's sobriquet, appears as a human woman wearing unusual armor, who can manifest strange weapons. Clearly this is the result of magic far beyond anything we know, and her true appearance must be utterly alien. Why she should appear as such I have no idea, because who could understand the mind of something of that nature?"

The man looked at the report on his knees, opening it again and flipping through the pages almost helplessly. "We don't even know if this being has a gender at all. It's possible that what the people present saw was only what their own minds produced in the face of something so far out of human experience they couldn't otherwise handle it. Or it might be a deliberate ploy of the entity for reasons of its own. Giving a human name suggests any number of unpleasant options… We can be sure it is _not_ human in the slightest though."

"From what you're saying this creature, this… Doom Queen… is a being on a par with one of the known Hell Gods such as Glorificus?" one of the other Watchers asked. Gifford glared at him.

"No. Have you not been _listening?_ This being makes something like Glorificus look like _nothing_. It could eat her for breakfast and want more."

The other man paled even more than he'd been up until now.

"If this is true, there is nothing I know of that is even _vaguely_ close to being in the same class of power," Gifford went on in heavy tones. "And I have not the faintest idea how we could possibly stop it doing whatever it wanted." He tapped the report. "From what this says, the lesser demons are for reasons known only to them purging the entire city of vampires and other pests. Possibly this is as Watcher Giles suggested because they don't want the competition, although it's hardly that in any case, and they have ulterior motives concerning Sunnydale. Possibly they are simply bored. I have _no idea_ why they are doing this. Nor why they are apparently _only_ doing so to hostile demonic forces. "

He shivered a little. "With any luck they will finish what they are doing and leave at that point. If they do _not_..." Gifford shook his head slowly. "We may be facing something that makes any previous apocalypse look… irrelevant."

In the corner the old clock chimed once, indicating the quarter hour. It was the only sound that disturbed the room for nearly a minute. Eventually, Travers nodded. "Thank you, Charles. As always your knowledge is exceptional. We will consider what you've told us carefully."

Gifford looked at him, then stood, the dismissal being clear. He dropped the report in his hand onto Travers' desk. "Do _not _underestimate this situation, Quentin," he warned in a low voice, leaning over the desk with his fists on the surface. "This is not something you can turn to your advantage, believe me on that. It could easily blow up into something that could destroy _everything_ and there is not a damn thing we can do about it. Only a fool would risk provoking this entity."

"I understand, Charles, never fear," Travers replied, looking him in the eyes. "Your information is quite clear."

Standing upright, Gifford examined him for a few seconds, then turned on his heel and headed towards the door. He was visibly sweating and much paler than he should have been.

"It goes without saying that none of this is to be mentioned outside this room," Travers commented as he reached the door.

"I have no intention of telling anyone anything," Gifford replied, his hand on the doorknob. "There is no good that would come of it. And right now, I intend to go home and become rather more inebriated than is probably good for me. I may be late tomorrow." He opened the door and left, closing it quietly behind him.

The people left behind exchanged looks.

Eventually, Travers reached out and picked up the report Gifford had left on his desk, opening it and leafing through slowly. "Where is Watcher Zabuto at present?" he asked the room at large.

"His current assignment is in Mexico City," one of the others replied immediately. "He and Slayer Young were dealing with an infestation of lesser demons resulting from the accidental uncovering of a Mayan temple during building work two months ago. His last report said that they had managed to eliminate virtually all the demons after considerable effort and the aid of a local hunter group."

The head of the Watcher's council nodded. "Good. Get word to him, he's to proceed to Sunnydale immediately and _carefully_ verify the information Watcher Giles has submitted. Tell him to keep his Slayer on a short leash, just in case." He looked up from the document at his subordinate. "Pass on only that there are an indeterminate number of unknown demons present and that they are _possibly_ non hostile if unprovoked."

"You think Watcher Giles is mistaken?" He transferred his gaze to the man who'd spoken.

"Perhaps. Or possibly compromised due to his… non-orthodox arrangement with Slayer Summers and her friends. Giles has always been..." He looked for the right word. "Willful. It's not _entirely_ impossible that the situation is not as dire as reported, but that he has either misinterpreted it or has deliberately tilted the truth in a direction that would make it seem unwise to interfere." He closed the report and put it neatly in the middle of his desk, then clasped his hands over it. "We have had minor issues with him in the recent past, after all. His loyalty to his Slayer, while admirable, is… possibly excessive. This may be coloring his outlook more than is ideal."

"I understand." The other man nodded. "And if Watcher Zabuto _does_ verify this report? What then?"

Travers thought for a moment. "Despite Charles' impassioned lecture, I do rather doubt that the literal Queen of Hell is _actually_ wandering around Sunnydale wearing armor out of a fantasy novel," he finally replied with a small smile. "I find it much more likely that some unusually powerful demon is utilizing the legend Charles spoke of as a method to scare off anyone who might interfere with their plan, whatever that is. Seizing control of the currently active Hell Mouth would cause every evil organization and individual in the world to immediately get involved somehow. But if they could frighten off any competition, well…" He spread his hands. "It's not impossible and would fit some of the more elaborate plans we've seen in the past. It certainly seems more likely than the issue Charles fears has come to pass, don't you agree?"

The other three appeared thoughtful and not entirely convinced, but eventually signaled acceptance.

"Clearly we can't allow such a thing to come about," the third man said.

"No. But if Watcher Giles is even vaguely accurate, it's not a problem one Slayer, or even a pair of them, can definitively handle." Travers thought again, tapping a finger on the report in an absent way, then nodded decisively. "All right. Get the Special Ops Team on the next flight to Sunnydale. Tell them to take anything they require for an insertion into a serious demon incursion, but to remain inconspicuous for now and await further orders. On no account are they to announce themselves to either Watcher Giles _or_ Watcher Zabuto. They are our ace in the hole."

He looked out the window into the rainy night, his face hard. "If there _is_ something to all this, I want it dealt with permanently. Regardless of local casualties, as it could be too important to be subtle. Obviously it would be _preferable_ to minimize fallout but make sure that they know it's not _essential_." Turning back to the others, he added, "Slayers, after all, are replaceable."

"Understood, sir," the man replied. "But Humanity is not."

"No," he agreed. "Which is of course our entire reason for existing."

The other three men stood. A few seconds later he was alone in his office. Picking up his half-depleted drink he also stood and walked over to the nearest window, looking out into the night as he sipped and examining the distant dome of St Pauls, which stood out on the skyline. "_Doom Queen_," he finally said quietly, his face in a darkly amused smile. "We shall see. Demons, after all, cannot be trusted to speak the truth, by definition. It will be interesting to discover what it really is..."

Finishing the whiskey, he returned the glass to his drinks cabinet after rinsing it, then went home, satisfied with the outcome of the day.

* * *

Opening the paper and spreading it out on the table, Giles scanned it looking for the article he'd been advised by Angel to read. It was on the second page.

_The total collapse of the Los Angeles headquarters building of the prestigious law firm Wolfram and Hart last night has been blamed on subsidence into a previously unknown sinkhole under the structure, possibly triggered by the swarm of minor earthquakes that have struck across much of California in recent days. These tremors, which according to seismologists are not considered serious or precursors to a more significant seismic event, have clustered around several locations in the state, which is now thought to indicate a fault line that has been inactive for centuries. Suspicions of a link to a major fracking operation just outside LA has caused the state government to issue a cease work order for one month to allow investigations to be carried out into whether the company has violated any regulations._

_In a stroke of luck the Wolfram and Hart building was almost empty due to the late hour when the collapse happened, leading to only three known fatalities and a dozen minor injuries, four from passers-by who were hit by debris during the event. The building itself is a total loss, the hole it fell into being at least two hundred feet deep. Subsequent flooding from a ruptured high pressure water main completely filled the sinkhole making recovery of the bodies of the deceased highly dangerous. The collapse was accompanied by loud noises described somewhat poetically by one witness as being "The screams of the damned howling in despair," although other nearby residents noted that they heard what sounded like enormous explosions deep underground. Experts say this was most likely the noise of stressed rock fracturing which they explain can produce a wide variety of sounds ranging from squeals to bangs, these being audible over significant distances due to transmission through the bedrock._

_Authorities have said that it will take at least four days to pump out the sinkhole before there can be any attempt at an investigation into this extraordinary event, and possibly as much as two weeks before the bodies of the three unfortunate souls who were known to be inside at the time can be located and recovered. They warn that due to the magnitude of the collapse it is possible that the bodies will never be found, although they promise to spare no effort._

_Wolfram and Hart have moved operations to their Denver office while they assess the damage and contact all clients impacted by the loss of data, contracts, and other vital documentation. This operation is complicated by a recent intense fire in their San Francisco branch which was apparently struck by lightning two days ago during a freak thunderstorm. Staff have been sent home on full pay until further notice._

Having read the article, Giles slowly polished his third set of glasses in as many weeks while thinking hard and carefully. He'd heard things about Wolfram and Hart. Things that made him suspicious that not all was entirely right in that corner of the world.

Things that made him wonder exactly what, or who, was behind the company's recent misfortune.

Or, possibly, _below_ it…

The slamming open of the library door made him start violently, nearly dropping his glasses. Turning he saw Buffy, Willow, and Xander standing there looking shocked.

"_Must_ you barge in like that?" he said with asperity. "The school only just got those doors repaired after all."

"Sorry, G-man," Xander said, waving that off. "But we just saw a huge demon with rocket launchers on its shoulders chasing the mayor down the middle of Main street."

Giles stared at him.

"We thought you should know," the boy added helpfully.

Giles stared at him some more. Then he pulled the chair closer to him, sat in it, and put his head in his hands.

"Bloody _hell_, this town will be the death of me," he moaned into his palms, wishing his bottle of amber memory eraser wasn't empty. A refill was clearly in order.

He _really_ needed some right about now.

Through the open window of his office, he heard a distant _whoosh_ sound followed by a thump.

"You are not worth HER time, insignificant worm," a very faint but very deep voice said, even at that distance sounding horribly amused in a dark fashion. "We serve HER will."

He moaned again, then stood up and closed the window. No good could come of listening further, he was certain.


	20. Omake - DOOM R&R: Observation

_A little more of this for your delectation. Delect it with gusto! ;)  
_

* * *

Cordelia slammed on the brakes, her car fishtailing to a halt, then hammered the horn while glaring at the two idiots who had walked right out in front of her without even looking. "Hey! Stupid guys! You want to pay attention a little more?" she shouted having lowered the window a little.

The two large burly men, one with a stetson on, looked at each other then at her, while she irritably motioned to them to either keep walking or go back. Instead of doing either, the pair walked over to the car. She made sure the door was locked and put her hand down the side of the seat to grab a large crucifix just in case.

Sure enough, as they bent down to peer into the car, they changed from rough looking men to rough looking vampires, their eyes turning yellow and their faces distorting. "Hey there, girly," the stetson-wearing one said with a nasty grin. "It's not nice to call people stupid."

The cheerleader suppressed her fear and fixed her gaze right at him. "I call it like I see it," she snapped.

They exchanged glances again. "You… _do_ know what we are, right?" the second one said, sounding slightly baffled. He apparently wasn't expecting defiance rather than fear.

"Yeah, yeah, you're big scary vampires," she replied dismissively, lifting the crucifix and waving it at them. "I know all about those. Not that there are many around the place these days. You guys must be new in town."

"You're not the Slayer," the first one stated, staring at her and sniffing.

"Her? No, I'm not her. Either one of them." She shrugged.

"Either one… There's more than one?" He looked momentarily worried. She nodded, smirking a little.

"Yeah. I know both of them."

"But they're not here right now," the second vampire commented, having quickly glanced from side to side, and checking her back seat to be sure. "So that cross ain't gonna to help you much."

She looked past them at the mouth of a dark alley on the other side of the road, then refocused on the pair, smiling darkly. "All I needed to do was delay you," she said, in a manner that seemed to make them puzzled.

"What, so the Slayer can get here?" the first asked, chuckling. "Don't think she's going to manage that in time."

"No, so _they_ could get here," she replied with a sweet smile. Then she pointed over his shoulder.

The two vampires looked at each other yet again, then slowly turned further.

She was pretty sure she saw the near-impossible, a vampire paling with fear. "Fuck, what the hell are _those_ things!" the first one shouted, whirling around, his friend spinning and diving sideways at the same time.

"No idea but they like eating vampires," she replied with a shrug, rather blasé these days considering how weird the town had become since that crazy woman dived into the Hell Mouth like a lunatic. Her friends seemed to be all over the place and turned up when you least expected them, and to be honest she'd got over being scared of them. It was getting old, and they were a lot more polite than most demons in her view. And they cleaned up after themselves which was a welcome difference.

Buffy wasn't too happy about it, probably because she didn't have anything to kill right now, but even the blonde Slayer wasn't crazy enough to attack one of _these_ things. It turned out she _could_ learn. Eventually. Cordelia was somewhat surprised it had taken her six separate attempts that had all ended in the thing she was attacking basically laughing at her and patting her on the head, but she'd always been stubborn…

Right now, though, there were two of the pink things with claws and teeth staring at the pair of vampires, along with one of the floating ball demons which was watching with its huge green single eye. The vampires stared back, looking abruptly very cautious.

If she'd been in their position she'd have been running as fast as possible, not that it would actually have helped.

**"More parasites,"** the globular demon rumbled, sounding almost happy.** "SHE does not approve of your type. We serve HER will."**

"What?" the stetson-wearing vampire said, sounding extremely confused.

**"We await her return with eager anticipation, knowing that SHE is smiting those not worthy of worshiping HER Glory and Rage,"** the ball with teeth said in an almost chatty way, although in a voice that would make most people shit themselves. Having seen what she'd seen Cordelia was mostly inured to the effect although it was still impressive. **"Until that day, we occupy ourselves with actions that SHE would find appropriate if they were not beneath HER personal attention."**

"What the _fuck?_" the other vampire said dumbly.

Cordelia tapped on the window, making them look at her. "He means run," she advised with a nasty smirk. "They like it when you run."

The vampires turned back to the three demons, just in time to see one of the bipedal ones lunge at them. "Shit!" the one in the hat screamed as it slashed at his face so fast there was a tearing sound of claws through the air. He _barely_ managed to drop to the ground in time, then rolled frantically as the thing slashed again, six inch claws tearing gashes in the tarmac and spraying fragments at Cordelia's car.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Watch the paintwork!"

**"Apologies, blessed one,"** the clawed demon said, **"It will not happen again."**

"It better not," she muttered, rolling the window down all the way and leaning out to inspect her car door. "This is a custom paint job."

The demon nodded to her, then charged off down the street after the fleeing vampire who had jumped to his feet while the thing was distracted and booked it, losing his hat in the process. His friend shouted "Kyle!" and ran after him, both to help him and to avoid the other smaller demon that had jumped at him from at least twenty feet away. He pulled out a revolver, which made the girl blink as she'd never heard of a vampire with a gun before, and fired a couple of shots at the demon chasing his friend.

The one following _him_ produced a large fireball which it shot at his back, the vampire looking behind him when he heard the whoosh and dropping flat with a scream of horror as the orange ball went overhead and blew a pothole in the road with a loud boom, then jumping to his feet and changing direction, pelting off down another alley to the side. The demon who'd clearly decided he was its chew toy followed eagerly. The first vampire and his own pursuer had already vanished around the corner ahead of her.

Shouts and more explosions sounded in the distance before everything went quiet.

She shook her head in mild wonder and put the crucifix back down beside the seat.

"Thanks," she called to the floating demon, which lifted one dangling arm in a sort of a wave at her, then rotated in mid-air and flew off down the sidewalk in the direction its companions had gone.

"God, this town is _bizarre_," she said to herself, closing the window and putting the car back in drive, then resuming her journey. "A lot less vampires around right now though, so I guess I can live with it."

* * *

Kendra watched open-mouthed as the dark-haired cheerleader girl she'd met a couple of times before, the snarky one with a mouth that was one of the other Slayer's hangers-on, drove off without an apparent care in the world. The interaction between the three strange demons that didn't correspond to _anything_ that her Watcher had taught her about, the two vampires, and the girl, was just… _wrong._

Sure, she knew that the other girl knew about the supernatural, that ship had already sailed, but the way brunette had merely sat there insulting the vampires while apparently waiting for the demons to intervene seemed extremely strange to her. Not to mention that the demons had apparently been polite to her, and didn't seem to be a threat at all. Nor did the other girl appear to see _them_ as a danger either, considering her parting comment.

What the hell was _wrong_ with this town? Even for an active Hell Mouth, that was not normal.

She scratched her head with the blunt end of the stake she was holding, while looking down from her position on the roof of the two story building she'd climbed the fire escape of to get a better view when she'd spotted the obvious vampires a few blocks back. The Chase girl turning up had been unexpected, but the subsequent events were just the sort of information Zabuto wanted.

Giant floating demonic balls with teeth and glowing green eyes were certainly new to her. So were clawed monstrosities that shot fireballs at things they didn't like.

And so was that nine foot tall thing with hooves, horns, and a rather unpleasant grin that was staring at her from the road _right below her_.

She gaped at it. How the _fuck_ had something _that_ size snuck up on her like that? It was only about thirty feet away and she hadn't heard a damned thing.

**"Another small creature that thinks it is dangerous," **the monstrously large demon said in a sub-bass voice that made her bones itch. It sounded amused more than anything else.** "You are not in HER league, _'Slayer._****'" **The thing emphasized the last word with a distinct smirk. **"Neither have _you _received the blessing of HER permission to live."**

Kendra tensed. That didn't sound… ideal.

**"However, SHE is merciful in her infinite Rage. We serve HER will, and SHE would allow your pitiful life to continue until such point as you defile her Glorious generosity. Should that day come we will take joy in ending you, even as insignificant as you are."** The demon smiled more widely as Kendra tried to work out if she'd been insulted, and if so whether it was really worth acting on.

Sam had taught her to kill demons without mercy. But he'd also taught her to think things through first, and she wasn't at all sure this creature was something she could handle.

It clearly didn't think that was the case, too. And it would probably know…

The demon chuckled, turned, and walked off, the thudding footsteps fading far more rapidly than they should have done. She watched it, completely motionless and ready for any tricks, until a distinct explosion off to the side made her snap her head around. A green flare of light in the distance, somewhere near or in the cemetery, dimmed away over a couple of seconds.

When she looked back, the enormous demon was gone without a trace.

The junior Slayer looked around suspiciously for some time, moving across the roof she was on to peer down on all sides of the building, then stood in the middle of the flat area next to an air conditioner and mulled over what she'd seen. Another even more distant boom made her look to see a rising blue fireball fade into the dark on the other side of the town perhaps a mile away.

She decided that her Watcher needed to know what she'd learned. Strange demons unlike anything she'd heard of roamed Sunnydale, apparently killing vampires for sport, and didn't seem even slightly concerned about a Slayer spotting them. And, even more peculiar was the fact that other people who knew about the things that went argh in the night weren't too worried either. Or at least that cheerleader wasn't.

And, for that matter, why did the entire town seem to be completely ignoring all this? She looked around again, unable to spot a single person on any of the streets she could see from her elevated position. No cars other than the brunette girl's one seemed to be driving around although it wasn't all that late at night, and while she could see lights on in various buildings, no one appeared to be sticking their heads out of windows to look and see what the explosions were caused by.

It was downright freaky, in her opinion. She knew that this town had a reputation for people being pretty much willfully oblivious to the supernatural but there were limits to that blind spot, surely? Giant floating balls and little imp things that blew up vampires were, one would have expected, obvious enough to attract at least _some_ attention…

Not to mention nine foot tall things with hooves, whatever it was that was making mushroom clouds of supernatural fire in strange colors every now and then, and _that thing!_

Gaping upwards in total disbelief, Kendra watched as some sort of flying creature like a vast pterodactyl as imagined by a horror film special effects guy glided overhead five hundred feet in the air, the huge head tilting slightly to let one virulently deep red glowing eye study her for a second before it moved past. She tracked it, moving only her eyes, until it dipped behind the taller buildings near Sunnydale University.

Letting out a breath, she shakily decided that she needed to report to her Watcher right the fuck _now._

She was a vampire slayer. Not a dragon slayer.

If _that_ was what they were up against, they were _definitely_ going to need some larger stakes…

* * *

"Overwatch One to Team Leader," the dark-garbed man whispered, his throat mic picking up his voice clearly and activating the vox circuit, keying up his radio. He was peering through his night vision scope at the school library from a few hundred yards away, the magnification wound up all the way, and he could clearly see the Sunnydale Watcher Rupert Giles through the windows. The man was pacing back and forth, apparently speaking, while his Slayer and several other teenagers, one girl and two boys, were sitting at a large table in the middle of the room surrounded by books and papers. As he watched, a woman in her late twenties or so came into view, holding a book of her own, one finger pointing at the page.

The Watcher stopped talking and turned to her, both of them examining the apparent picture, then he shook his head. She nodded and turned the page.

Wishing they'd managed to get an audio bug inside the room, as he was curious to know what was being said, the observer moved his point of view as motion caught his attention, seeing another teenager, this one a tallish and very attractive brunette, park her car on the street near the school and get out, then lock it before heading inside. As she disappeared through the door, he looked back to the view through the library windows. A few seconds later she reappeared inside, waving her hands expressively as she apparently described something.

Based on the motions, it was something very large and probably round.

Watcher Giles sat down, looking tired and confused, and took his glasses off, putting his free hand over his eyes and shaking his head. The girl shrugged as he said something. One of the boys started laughing, causing the red-headed girl next to him to poke his shoulder with her finger.

_"Go ahead, Overwatch One,"_ a voice crackled in his headset.

Not lifting his eye from the scope, which was mounted on a suppressed semi-automatic rifle on a bipod, the observer replied, "Watcher Giles and Slayer Summers in view, along with known local contacts including Janna Kalderash, Willow Rosenberg, and Xander Harris. Two further personnel on site, a brunette female teenager matching the description of Cordelia Chase, and an unknown male teenager. Group appears to be engaged in research based on large quantities of documentation present. Watcher Giles looks to be somewhat exasperated."

_"Understood, Overwatch One. Have there been any sightings of either Watcher Zabuto or Slayer Young?"_

"Negative, Team Leader."

_"Sightings of unknown demonic presence?"_

"Also negative. No motion at all other than four pedestrians in the last hour. All registered as normal human body temperature and left the area without deviation. Two vehicles passed also, one police cruiser and one civilian car. Neither showed any interest in the school."

_"Understood. Continue surveillance. Overwatch Two will relieve you in three hours."_

"Orders if Watcher Zabuto or his Slayer make contact with group?"

_"Report immediately in that eventuality but take no further action without orders. It is highly unlikely to happen as both are currently in their motel room. Slayer Young returned in considerable haste half an hour ago and hasn't left since. We don't expect them to leave until dawn. However, remain alert just in case."_

"Affirmative, Team Leader. What about if unknown demonic forces are spotted?"

_"Do not engage without direct orders. If necessary, fall back to a safe position and contact us immediately when you're out of danger."_

"Affirmative."

He paused, then added, "Do we know what the unknowns are?"

_"Negative, Overwatch One. That is implied in the concept of '**unknown**.'"_

The observer rolled his eyes despite himself. Captain Bloody Obvious was on the ball tonight. He heard a snicker over the radio link but didn't say anything.

Observer Two was a dick sometimes.

_"Next check-in in half an hour. Team Leader out."_

* * *

"What about this one?" Willow said, pointing at another article in the local paper. "Someone broke into the Sunnydale Museum and stole an artifact that was being examined there. Some gnarly old thing the archaeologists dug up at a construction site outside the town yesterday." She examined the photo next to the article as Giles came over to stand next to her. "It looks really ancient, right?"

"It does appear to be extremely old," he replied with a nod, bending over the table and studying the image as closely as possible. "These engravings are intriguing... possibly an archaic form of Norse runes?" Picking up the paper he peered at the photo with interest. "Fascinating. Unfortunately most of the inscription is obscured in this picture."

"So could it be another evil artifact?" she asked. "I mean, an old box covered in runes or whatever that got dug up from centuries underground right next to a Hell Mouth? It's gotta be evil. They're always evil, the things that come from below. Especially around here." Willow was worried, but then she'd been worried for quite a while now.

Giles sighed as he put the paper back on the table. "Unfortunately I can't entirely disagree with you, Willow. There's a decent chance that this artifact is indeed something dangerous."

"So we add it to the list." She pulled a notebook closer and wrote another entry on the rather extensive list they'd been compiling for more than ten days now of bizarre happenings around the country that seemed they could be in some way connected to the supernatural.

The Mayor's disappearance after he'd been seen running away from a rocket firing demon that was laughing like a crazy thing. Wolfram and Hart in LA because of an earthquake. Then in San Francisco because of lightning out of a clear sky. Then in Denver due to a mysterious fire from nowhere. Then in New York because of another earthquake. Even though New York didn't really _get_ earthquakes. Several places around the US that were known hot spots of evilness having all sorts of weird things happen to them for no apparent reason.

They'd been scouring newspapers and online reports and building quite a collection of peculiar events, most of which were explained away as strange accidents or random chance by the authorities. None of them really believed that, especially as there were reports of odd sightings in most of the places these things were happening. Odd sightings that corresponded quite well to some of the things that they'd all seen wandering around Sunnydale for awhile now.

The red-head glanced at the sealed Hell Mouth with a shiver.

Then she looked at Cordelia, who was talking to Xander about some of the things she'd seen that week. Most of those things were very dangerous but oddly polite.

Willow shook her head. Life had become far stranger recently than she could easily explain, and she was wondering what the next bizarre thing was going to be.

And what was going to happen when SHE came back…

"Got another one, I think," Oz called from the other side of the table where he was looking through a stack of out of state newspapers from the previous day. "Is Cleveland particularly evil?"

Giles sighed and reached for the paper her boyfriend was holding up, while she flipped to the next page in the notebook and got ready to write again.


	21. Omake - DOOM R&R: Encounters

_ A little more of this for your reading pleasure. I think there's probably one more part before the vacation is over and Taylor gets back to serious business ;) _

* * *

Only the sound of the ticking clock and the rustling of pages turning broke the silence in the room, as the small group read the latest report from Watcher Zabuto. He and his Slayer had been in Sunnydale for just over a week now, filing daily updates, and the upper members of the Council hierarchy had been reading them assiduously and with growing disbelief and concern.

Finally, Charles Gifford very deliberately closed the neatly bound printout he was holding, put it on the floor next to his chair, got up, and spent several minutes carefully raiding Travers' liquor cabinet. Travers merely watched him as he poured out a finger of extremely expensive spirits, looked at the glass, shook his head, and doubled the amount, before drinking it in one shot.

"May the good lord preserve us," the lore master finally said, putting the glass down and walking back to his seat. "She actually _saw_ a Chaos Wyvern and _survived?_"

"If that is what a very, very large draconic demon is called, apparently she did," Travers replied. "Several times." He was feeling somewhat less sure of his initial conclusions after the various new data had come in, but still thought it was most likely this was all a ploy by some demonic party who was deliberately attempting to scare off any competition while it used the resources represented by the Hell Mouth.

He had to admit that if this was the case it was a fairly _effective_ ploy. And, in the process, it appeared to be removing said competition with alacrity. Demon attacks across the state of California had essentially fallen to zero, as had the number of vampires, and there were a growing number of reports from all over the entire world that _something_ was causing a very sharp increase in the number of unexplained incidents involving what most people would consider the forces of evil. Said forces appeared to be having a bad time of it right now, which he was fine with all in all, except that he didn't know _why_ and very much wanted to.

After all, it could be something the Council could use, and they _were_ the logical ones to supervise whatever weapon or group was moving around the place upsetting the balance of power. He found it somewhat irritating that his own group didn't know what was going on and had had no warning before whatever it was started up. That was unacceptable.

"It is the nearest thing I can think of from the literature that matches the description," Gifford said with a shake of his head, his eyes wide. "Although I suspect the girl has overestimated the size of the creature, as a Chaos Wyvern is reputed to have a wingspan of no more than approximately one hundred feet or thereabouts. Her report would put it at greater than three times that size, which seems unlikely. At least, I desperately _hope_ it's unlikely." He looked at the liquor cabinet for a moment and visibly decided against it. "Mind you, no human has seen one for some three thousand six hundred years, so I can't be completely certain of the true size of such a creature."

He looked hard at Travers. "Do you know what happened at that time?"

Quentin shook his head, ancient history wasn't his forte.

"The last time a Chaos Wyvern was seen on Earth, it was coming out of the volcano in the center of the island of Thera. Which is known in modern times as Santorini."

One of the other senior Watchers said, "Isn't that the island that..."

"The island that exploded when the very same volcano went up in a blast that ended the Minoan civilization and probably caused the legend of Atlantis, yes," Gifford said flatly as he turned his head to look at the man, who paled. "A few minutes _after_ the Chaos Wyvern emerged from within. To this day we don't know precisely what happened, but certain literature that's survived, along with tales passed down in various demonic clans, speaks of a ritual to tap what could well have been some form of what we now term a Hell Mouth. There is some debate as to whether it actually _was_ the same as the ones we're all too familiar with, or something rather different, but there is sufficient evidence to strongly suggest that the disaster wasn't entirely natural. And of course everyone involved failed to leave any notes on their activities, mostly because they and most of their entire island went away in one of the largest volcanic eruptions known to man."

Everyone _else_ was now somewhat paler than usual. Even Travers was feeling more than a little worried.

"But Sunnydale is still there, and there's no sign of a volcano or any other such disaster," he pointed out. "Although there do seem to have been a considerably number of unusual earthquakes..."

Gifford shrugged. "I can't explain it, all I can do is tell you what I know, which is all too little. And far more than I really am comfortable with even so, all things considered." He reached down and picked up the folder, opening it to one page which had a sketch of something horrible on it, then held it up. "For example, I have no idea _what_ this creature truly is, but there are some disturbing similarities to a legend from a vastly ancient demonic civilization which is only known through fourth hand writings from a completely unrelated source. That legend tells of '_floating spheres of malice and hatred that destroyed all before them with hellfire which scorched the very soul to ash_.' It also claimed '_Their single great eye radiated death and they gorged themselves on the flesh of all whom they encountered with delight and dark joy._'

He looked at the sketch, which Quentin had to admit fitted those sentences more closely than he was entirely happy about. "Allegedly _one _of the things emptied an entire city of all life when a portal to its domain was unwisely opened somehow. Watcher Zabuto reports that his Slayer has seen up to _three_ of them at one time in Sunnydale. And that they are simply moving about the streets late at night chasing vampires unwise enough to show themselves, while utterly ignoring the human inhabitants. Worse, she claims that she witnessed one of them _actually being polite to a teenaged cheerleader!_" He stared at Quentin with his eyebrows lost in his hair. "I have not the faintest _idea_ what is going on, but I very much do not like it. Frankly, it terrifies me."

Travers could see the truth of this in his eyes.

Gifford flipped through several more pages of sketches. Slayer Young was apparently rather good at them, the result being unpleasantly realistic. "And that is the only one I recognize in any way _at_ _all_. Assuming it's the same thing as described in the legend I mentioned, which I certainly can't guarantee. None of these other ones match anything we have records of, except very loosely in a couple of cases. Yet apparently they are all wandering about the place in that benighted town and simply amusing themselves by eliminating everything _else_ that might pose a threat, while waiting for their Queen to reemerge from the Hell Mouth. Which, based on Slayer Young's report, they are sure will happen when she has '_purged the lower realms of those unworthy to worship her Glory and Rage,'_ a comment I can't help but find worrying. Deeply so."

"There are reports that similar creatures have been seen in a number of other locations around the world," another of those present remarked, glancing at his compatriots, his face showing how disturbed he was by all this. "Most of these locations have also shown a precipitous drop in demonic activity in a short period of time. Yet there are no usable photographs of any of these things."

"Our magic users report odd fluctuations in mana flow worldwide, too," someone else put in. "None of them have experienced anything quite like it before and are baffled by the phenomenon."

"It's all connected," Gifford said. "Somehow. And it is all ultimately related to Sunnydale and whoever or whatever it is that went through the Hell Mouth."

The room was silent for a while, the ticking of the clock breaking the moments into seconds.

"The thing that _really_ gives me sleepless nights," he finally said, very quietly, "Is what will happen when it comes _back_."

The Council leadership looked at each other, none of them, not even Travers, able to come up with an answer.

* * *

As he walked out of the small shop, Xander concentrated on opening the recalcitrant bag of treats, which fought back manfully but eventually succumbed to the forces of good and hunger. "Got you," he crowed, peeling open the plastic and sticking his hand inside. Not watching where he was going he promptly walked into someone who was apparently also not looking in the right direction and bounced off, stumbled, and nearly dropped the bag as he tripped over the curb. His reflexes were up to the job though and he rolled as he fell, saving his precious cargo while landing hard on his back.

"Ow," he mumbled, staring up at the darkening sky of early evening, then focusing on something closer. Something that was looking at him with a poorly concealed smirk along with a slightly embarrassed expression. "Kendra?" he mumbled. "What… Where did you come from?"

The junior Slayer smiled a little, giving him a hand and pulling him to his feet with effortless strength when he accepted it. "You should watch where you're going, Xander," she said in her accented voice, sounding amused. "I might have been a demon."

"Hey, _you're_ the one who wasn't watching where she was going," he retorted, while checking that his purchase wasn't squashed and relaxing when he found it intact. "I was just walking along minding my own business."

"You were half inside that bag of..." Kendra tilted her head as he held it up. "Twinkies. Of course."

"Want one?" he offered, holding it out. She sighed but took one of the little snacks, then removed the outer packaging of it as he did the same. Both of them bit into the sponge.

"Ahh. That's the good stuff," he sighed in delight.

"You are truly a strange boy," she commented although he noticed hers also disappeared fairly quickly.

"Guilty as charged," he replied cheerfully, unwrapping a second one. "So why are you here? I didn't know you were in Sunnydale again."

She looked both ways, then up at the roof line, as he followed her gaze. "I can't tell you," she said in a low voice. "I'm not supposed to contact any of you people."

He squinted at her, curious. That sounded ominous in his opinion. She met his eyes but didn't expand on the comment. Deciding that he wasn't going to get anything by asking straight out, he shrugged. "OK. I guess it's secret Council business or something?"

"Something," she muttered under her breath, while looking off to the side. He followed her gaze but didn't see anything, although he took note of her overall demeanor, which was that of a girl who was apprehensive and worried, although friendly. He rather liked Kendra, she was an interesting person, almost as direct as Cordelia and nearly as dangerous as Buffy, but oddly innocent compared to either. Presumably due to her upbringing which had as he understood it been odd even for a Slayer.

"You in town for long?" he queried.

She looked back at him, then smiled slightly. "I can't say," she said.

"Again with the mystery," he grinned. "Twinkie?" He held out the bag.

"You can't bribe me to tell you," she replied as she took one.

"Would I do that?" he asked, also taking another one.

She inspected him. "You are not nearly as silly as you pretend you are," she told him, before eating the snack.

Xander smiled at her, mildly amused and wondering why she really was here. He had a pretty strong suspicion it was probably due to all the weirdness recently which was extreme even for Sunnydale, and wondered whether the Watcher's Council was trying to bypass Giles. From what he'd picked up about the shadowy group, he wouldn't put it past them.

"Oh, I'm at _least_ as silly as I pretend I am," he protested lightly. "Possibly sillier. Or pretendier, or something like that."

The girl shook her head with a laugh. "I have to go," she told him, her eyes sliding to the side once more. He glanced that way as unobtrusively as he could but still couldn't see anything untoward. "Thank you for the twinkies."

He made an elaborate bow as he replied, "Anything for the lady," meeting her amused eyes as he straightened up. "Until we meet again." Reaching into the bag he flipped her one last snack, which she grabbed out of the air almost too fast for him to see the motion, nodded to her, and resumed walking in the direction he'd originally intended. He heard over the sound of a couple of passing cars her very light footsteps vanish in the other direction, risking a look over his shoulder as he turned the corner. He was just in time to see her leg disappear down an alley a hundred yards away.

"Interesting," he mumbled to himself. "Very interesting."

He decided that Giles probably needed to know, and headed for the school, the twinkies not surviving the trip.

* * *

"That was careless, child," Sam chided.

"I was distracted," Kendra said, embarrassed. "Something was lurking on the roof of the building on the other side of the road and I was trying to work out what it was. Xander came out at the wrong moment."

Her Watcher looked hard at her. "Something?"

"Or someone. I could hear movement but whoever or whatever it was, was very careful not to be seen."

"A demon? One of these new ones?"

She bit her lip. "Perhaps," she allowed. "But I don't think so. They're very sneaky, you hardly know they're there unless they _want_ you to know they're there. Even the big ones. I think it was either a human, or something else that's not one of… whatever they really are."

He studied her, then after a few seconds looked carefully around, and up at the tops of the buildings. "I see," he replied after a moment's thought. "Come, we should get back to the motel and work out tonight's operation." She followed as he went down the alley and out the other end on the next block over, where his rented car was parked.

"Sam? Why can't we talk to Buffy and her group? They might know more about..." She waved a hand indicating the town, and the complete lack of vampires or anything normal. "What's happening." She slid into the passenger seat and closed the door.

"Council orders, you know that," he replied as he started the vehicle. She sighed a little but nodded.

"You realize that Xander will tell Giles he saw me, though?" she said as he pulled away. Her Watcher glanced at her for a moment, his expression neutral, but she thought she saw a slight glint in his eye.

Returning his attention to the road, he replied, "Do you think so?" He appeared to think it over. "How annoying." His voice was remarkably calm.

She studied the side of his head for a moment or two, then looked out the windscreen, not quite smiling. "Why did you send me down that street in the first place?" she asked quietly.

"Just a hunch," he told her. "Unfortunately it didn't produce any useful result."

She almost believed him.

* * *

"Slayer Young returned to Watcher Zabuto without incident and they left the scene in the direction of their accommodation. As far as I could determine she didn't make me, although she looked in my direction once or twice. I don't think she told Xander Harris anything either, they only spoke for approximately thirty seconds before he left in the other direction. He offered her some junk food which she accepted but it was from a sealed bag he apparently purchased in the shop he came out of. It looks like an entirely accidental encounter."

_"Affirmative, Overwatch Two. Awkward, but there was always the possibility of Watcher Giles' group becoming aware of Watcher Zabuto or Slayer Young. We will watch and see if anything else happens, but until that point our orders are to stay well out of the way."_

The man lurking on the roof of one of the taller commercial buildings in the center of Sunnydale nodded to the voice in his earpiece as he watched through binoculars the distant figure of Xander Harris, who was walking along a street nearly a quarter of a mile away now. The boy crumpled the empty bag of horrible little synthetic cakes into a ball and dropped it into a garbage can without pausing, then ultimately passed behind a building in the distance and vanished.

"The boy is heading roughly in the direction of Sunnydale High School, Team Leader. I estimate his ETA as ten minutes worst case."

_"Proceed to observation post Delta and relieve Overwatch Three, then maintain surveillance until you are relieved, Overwatch Two."_

"Affirmative, Team Leader. Overwatch Two out."

He tapped his throat mic, knelt on the roof and put his binoculars into his tactical backpack, shrugged it on, and quickly descended the fire escape at the rear of the building with the expertise and lack of noise of someone highly trained and very practiced at stealth. Soon there was no trace he'd been there.

* * *

Fifty feet behind where Observer Two had been situated, a much larger than human scale creature chuckled to himself.

He hadn't had so much entertainment for longer than many civilizations had existed. Being one of HER loyal subjects was vastly preferable to any alternative that he could possibly imagine, and serving HER will was endlessly amusing.

Silently following the little human despite his hooves and bulk, he wondered what SHE was doing, aside from purging those who did not live up to HER standards.

Which was admittedly almost everyone, but that was simply how things worked.

Soon SHE would return triumphant and he was curious to see what happened next. In the mean time, he and the rest of HER followers would continue dealing with all the things that were below HER personal notice.

SHE would approve, he felt. Perhaps one day he could summon up the courage to ask. HER Rage was infinite, but she was also a merciful deity, and would _probably_ not end him for merely asking a question.

* * *

Winifred Burkle looked through the sights of the weapon, then very carefully pulled the trigger.

The discharge of the plasma was quite loud, but not excessively so. Watching as the demon some four hundred yards away exploded into bloody chunks, she smiled to herself.

"Excellent," the terrifying woman who had found her cave a while ago said approvingly. "Good shot."

Fred looked up at the much taller woman, her power armor disguising her figure, and replied, "Thanks."

"I think we can move on to the rocket launcher now," Taylor said, taking back the heavy energy weapon and doing whatever it was that she did to make it go away. Fred watched with great interest, yet again running calculations in her head, trying to understand what seemed to be some sort of subspace pocket as far as she could determine. A larger weapon appeared in Taylor's hands, distracting her from her musings.

"Right. You read the manual?"

"Of course." Fred nodded. It was only sensible. You _always_ read the manual. And after not having anything to read for nearly three years, it was also something that she'd have done even if it hadn't been a document that described technology centuries ahead of anything she knew. The mere opportunity to learn some of the things she'd seen in the last few days was almost worth her exile to this horrible place.

_Almost_.

But she was still taking probably more joy in blowing up demons than she should have done, never having thought of herself as a violent person.

Taylor was… catching.

She smiled darkly, armed the weapon that Taylor handed to her with one hand, nearly fell over under the weight, managed to recover before something ghastly happened, and took aim on the next demon running in their direction screaming threats.

"Bye bye," she said under her breath, dropping the targeting icon over it and waiting for it to lock, then pulling the trigger.

Taylor patted her on the back as the rocket splashed the demon across the scenery. "Nice job," she laughed. "We'll soon have you up to a decent standard."

Fred fired again, and again, feeling a cathartic sense of achievement.

Apparently Taylor was _very_ catching.

And she'd promised that when they finished wiping out all these demons, she'd show Fred some really interesting math some friends of hers had come up with.

The young woman smiled again.

_Almost_ worth it.

She was still going to kick her former professor's ass when she got home, though.

A lot. Over and over and over.

Then she was going to do something _horrible_ to him.

Taylor was _extremely_ catching, and had made some good suggestions. She had quite the imagination where it came to justified revenge...


	22. Omake - DOOM R&R: Think, Explain, Fight

Looks like there are actually two more chapters of this omake from Hell... ;) This one and the next one.

* * *

Willow watched Buffy practicing with a sword against a training dummy, the blonde concentrating on decapitating the thing yet again. As always she marveled at how fast her friend could move and how hard she could hit. After a few more strikes, she looked back at the book she'd been studying, trying once more to identify _any_ of the weird demonic _things_ wandering around Sunnydale.

She shivered a little at the thought. Since meeting Buffy she'd had some very strange experiences, but nothing she'd ever seen could be compared to the things that had happened since the night that Taylor woman wandered in, cracked the Hell Mouth open like it was a jar of cookies, and jumped through it.

The Mayor had vanished, although she had a pretty good idea what had been responsible for that, having _seen_ it. All the vampires had also disappeared, with the sole exception of Angel, who was walking around looking thoughtful and very worried these days. And there were ongoing oddities that seemed to be related to things that might have been trouble if someone hadn't got there first.

Like the Judge. And Spike and Drusilla. And whatever had been in that huge stone box that had vanished from the museum the night after it had been discovered. They'd found melted fragments of stone some distance away a couple of days later which could well have been the remains of the box, but whatever had been inside it was utterly destroyed. All the hostile demons that normally roamed the night and the underground passageways had disappeared too, along with every other potential threat she could think of, or that Giles or anyone else could either.

Leaving only the new demons, and any non-hostile old ones, who were apparently being very careful indeed to remain in the '_non-hostile_' category. She couldn't blame them as hostile things suddenly had an extremely short life expectancy around Sunnydale…

Even Principal Snyder was looking both worried and much less sure of himself these days. He still sneered at Buffy and the rest of them, but he did it very quietly and left the room rapidly whenever he saw any of them. She couldn't help wondering why.

Mind you, she'd always put him down as a barely non-hostile demon anyway, so perhaps she'd been right.

Poor Giles was getting more flustered by the day as they found more and more examples of _something_ bizarre happening in the world of the supernatural. All the earthquakes where there were no known faults or any other normal causes, for example. The way that giant law firm Wolfram and Hart seemed to be having the worst luck of the century, with building after building meeting a strange and violent fate for no obvious reason. Sinkholes, fires, lightning strikes, sudden flocks of tornadoes restricted to the immediate vicinity, a particularly aggressive attack of mold in one case, and even a small meteorite that in the most implausible series of events had set off a gas explosion in a building that didn't even have gas… It was like someone had a grudge against them.

Angel had said that the company was notorious in the supernatural world although he wasn't entirely sure why, so maybe someone really _did_ have a grudge against them, and the ability to carry out that grudge in interesting ways.

She glanced at the Hell Mouth cap and wondered, yet again, before shaking her head and going back to her book and ruminations, the latter of which were getting in the way of the former.

So far between them they'd noted at least two dozen different types of the demons who seemed to literally worship the woman they called HER, in letters you could _hear_ were capitalized. Willow couldn't help but wonder if SHE was in any way human at all, never mind what she looked like. The '_can take a crossbow bolt to the head without noticing_' trick did suggest otherwise, as did being followed around by a vast quantity of _things_ that made _normal_ demons look like fluffy little ducklings.

Unfortunately not one of those two dozen or so encounters matched _anything_ in the books Giles had available, or the ones Angel had dug up from one source or the other. They varied in type from the little clawed ones that were more than capable of mowing down vampires by the handful, through the floating balls that seemed to have a weird sense of humor and were strangely polite if you happened to meet one in the street, to the giant hooved ones that looked more like classical devils than anything she could think of. Although even there they had a lot of differences. And there were all the ones that seemed to be some strange sort of demonic cyborg, like the one that had been chasing the mayor, who'd looked absolutely terrified when she'd last seen him running for his life.

She'd heard that Angel had also seen an honest to god _dragon, _or something that could easily pass as one, flying around over the town one night a week back, which had left him looking very nervous indeed. And quite disinclined to go outside for a couple of days…

Apparently it had been very large indeed.

One of the things that had become apparent quite rapidly, aside from all these new creatures being hideously dangerous and extremely hard to fight if you were crazy enough to even try, was that they all seemed to be a lot smarter than they were used to. Most demons, in her experience, weren't all that bright. Vampires especially although there were exceptions, like Angel himself, and she would admit rather reluctantly, Spike, who hadn't been an idiot for the most part. Not that this was in any way good, since a _smart_ evil thing was much more dangerous than a stupid one.

But these things… Most of them seemed to be at least as bright as a normal human and she had a sneaking suspicion that some of them were a lot smarter than that. The big devil thing especially, although the floating balls were pretty convincingly intelligent, at least according to Cordelia who entirely to everyone's shock seemed to be on good terms with several of the demons.

Which was just _bizarre_. Not only that they'd say hello when they passed in the first place, but that the brunette cheerleader would simply say hello back like it was her next door neighbor.

After all, _she_ had only been introduced to the world of the supernatural some time after Willow and Xander, but now she was so jaded about the presence of demons she just nodded to them and went about her business? Who _did_ that?

The things still gave Willow the willies. And Buffy wasn't too keen on them either, possibly because they triggered her Slayer instincts, which didn't seem to know _what_ to do about something that basically laughed at her when she attacked them, but didn't do anything other than gently fend her off and make it look easy until she got annoyed and stomped off. At least she'd finally given up just jumping them on sight, although it had taken her a while to work out that approach wasn't working.

She was stubborn, Buffy was.

Poor Giles was on his fourth set of glasses now by Willow's count and looked like he hadn't slept properly for several days, Miss Calendar was waling around with a peculiarly thoughtful yet baffled expression most of the time…

Yeah, it had been a strange time in Sunnydale since one memorable night some weeks back. On the other hand, the town was probably safer now than at any time since it was founded, so there was that.

She'd just be a lot happier if she could figure out _why_, and she suspected that everyone else would be too.

Or… possibly not. Depending on what those things really were, and what SHE was.

Sighing, she turned the page, scanned it, shook her head, and moved on.

* * *

Sitting in his office and contemplating an empty glass that had held a very small amount of very good liquor up until a little while ago, Giles absently wondered if he was beginning to have a drinking problem. What with all the bizarre goings-on in the last little while, he didn't think it was unreasonable.

And now the latest news was that the Council had sent their second Slayer and her Watcher to check up on him.

Oh, they hadn't come out and _said_ that, of course. Nor had they even bothered to tell him anything useful at all. They just asked for more information, information he didn't _have_, and then clearly disbelieved most of what he _could_ tell them. In a way he didn't blame them, he disbelieved a lot of it too, even though he was the source of it. Unfortunately there was far too much evidence to show it was actually true even if no one could really work out what _it_ was to begin with.

Trouble, definitely, he was sure of that much, but precisely who for he wasn't entirely certain. Although vampires in general did appear to be having an extremely hard time of it in recent weeks, seeing as how they were basically extinct in the wild at the moment.

He'd never in his wildest dreams thought _that_ would happen. It was a constant struggle to merely hold the status quo against the forces of darkness, but apparently all that was needed to win was the forces of even darkerness to turn up out of the blue and wipe out everything else.

For some reason that didn't completely fill him with confidence.

Although he had to admit that as far as demons went the new ones were much easier to deal with than the usual lot. And far more terrifying, even when they didn't seem to be actually _trying. _In some ways that was even worse, having something that looked like it would give Satan himself reason to never sleep again casually smirking at one and politely nodding as it passed.

He shuddered a little at the memory.

No, while things were arguably better on the Hell Mouth than they'd been at any point in history, he wasn't at all sure this was in fact a good thing in the long run.

Because what would happen when they ran out of other demons to eat?

Shaking his head, he looked wistfully at the empty glass for a moment longer then carefully and deliberately put it away in his drawer and locked the thing, before pulling his notebook closer and picking up a pen. He stared at the words on the page for a while, half a stiff and annoyed note to the Council on it laying out his displeasure with them going behind his back, then dropped the pen and tore the page out of the book. Crumpling it up he tossed it into the nearly overflowing bin next to the desk with a sigh.

No, a letter wasn't going to do it. They were being sneaky which never boded well. Bloody Travers was undoubtedly attempting to discover anything he could put to his benefit, as he tended to. Giles didn't like the man and never had, and trusted him even less. He represented the worst aspects of the organization, a side of it he personally didn't like at all but saw no way to be rid of. Giles and people like him had tried for decades to get the Council to look on the Slayers as more than a disposable resources, with little long term effect. Buffy had already broken many records in how long she'd lived after being Called, and how effectively if non-traditionally she and her friends had dealt with multiple major problems, but that meant almost nothing to certain people.

As far as they were concerned she was close to being a rogue element, which was entirely against how they wanted things. The mere fact that she _had_ friends who helped her was enough to taint her in their eyes, and by extension Giles himself. His protestations that their small team was the most successful in centuries was glossed over as irrelevant, which was infuriating. And worrying, as he had a nasty feeling that sooner or later they might decide that something should be done about it, which he couldn't see ending well.

And after all, they had a spare Slayer already. One who was much more traditional in her training and outlook, although having met the girl during the recent confusion a few months ago he was fairly sure she was rather more intelligent than they really realized. Exposure to Buffy and her friends might well have set her on the path to questioning aspects of her training that some would prefer to remain unquestioned.

Sam Zabuto, too, while in most ways a very traditional Watcher, was politically adept in a way that Giles himself knew he wasn't, and was very fond of his Slayer. He wouldn't put it past the man to have taken precautions just in case the Council higher-ups decided to do something awkward.

Which of course led him once more to muse on the '_coincidence_' of Kendra happening to simply bump into Xander the other day.

He was rather suspicious about that whole encounter, truth be told.

Clearly Sam and Kendra had been in town for at least a few days. The questions the Council had been asking him about his reports had changed in tone noticeably about a week ago, and when he'd checked on the other Watcher's location at that time via some discreet contacts, he'd found that they'd been in Mexico. Jenny had managed to use her ability with those infernal computers to come up with flight plans from the nearest airport to their former location to Sunnydale, which showed that there was only one direct flight a week. Oddly enough that flight had been on the same day as the Council's behavior changed.

His conclusion was the obvious one, that Sam and Kendra had been ordered to investigate, without letting him know about it. And that meant they'd been here for that same week, minus travel time. They'd have undoubtedly very quickly discovered that his reports were entirely accurate, as the new demons weren't exactly discreet for the most part. Anyone who wasn't suffering from terminal '_Sunnydale Syndrome_' as Xander put it would easily notice them skulking around, unless they were going out of their way to be stealthy, which admittedly they could do appallingly well. He suspected that in fact at least some of the demons, the ones that showed an odd sense of humor, might well have deliberately shown themselves to Kendra, and possibly Sam, merely because it amused them.

They were like that, he'd decided.

And he also surmised that Sam would have quite rapidly decided that the Council wasn't telling him everything, as it was entirely certain that they _wouldn't_ have told him more than the absolute minimum they could plausibly get away with. Which in turn would mean that soon enough he'd realize that he was in a situation without precedent, and Giles might well know far more about it than he did. Not being an idiot, he wouldn't like that, but being somewhat less prone to deliberately ignoring orders when they were stupid he wouldn't have _overtly_ done anything he wasn't supposed to.

On the other hand… It was entirely possible that he might have arranged things to _accidentally_ betray Kendra's presence to Xander, knowing full well that the boy would immediately inform Giles about it, which would probably mean Giles would end up going down the exact thought path that he now was.

The question was, what did Sam expect Giles to do, after deducing all this?

Especially as it was very likely in his opinion that the Council, being the paranoid controlling wankers they were, would have _also_ sent one of their black ops teams in without letting either him _or_ Sam know about it, to watch both of them and see what happened. And most likely to stick their oar in at the most bloody inappropriate time possible as they usually managed to do…

"Damn it," he sighed faintly, spinning his pen through his fingers as he thought. "Sometimes I really hate my employers."

Turning, he looked out the window into the dark, wondering if someone was looking back through the sights of a weapon. He certainly wouldn't put it past them.

"Arseholes," he mumbled even more faintly as he came to a decision and stood up, dropping the pen once more, then walking across the room to collect his jacket which he put on and straightened carefully. Then he went through to the library where Willow and Buffy were reading and practicing respectively.

"I've got to pop out for a little while, I'm afraid," he said to the two girls. Handing Willow a spare set of keys, he added, "If I'm not back by the time you get bored, please ensure that you lock up on your way out. I'll see you tomorrow in that case."

"OK, Giles," the redhead replied with a smile as she looked up from the ancient tome she was currently engrossed in. "Is it something important?"

He smiled back. "I merely need to talk to a friend for a while," he said. Looking at her notes, he studied them for a second or two. "No luck, I see."

She shook her head, looking mildly depressed now. "No, I can't find _anything _about those guys and I've looked through almost every book you have! It's so weird. You'd think that someone would have described them _somewhere_ over the last couple of thousand years, but there's nothing so far. Cordelia and Xander couldn't find anything either."

Giles looked around with a small frown. "Where are those two, for that matter. Normally they infest my library as much as you two do." He smiled to show it was a joke, making Willow giggle. She shrugged.

"I'm not sure. Xander said he needed something to eat, and I think Cordy went with him. They were both gone when I looked up anyway."

"Ah." Glancing at his watch, he nodded. "It is quite late. And the streets are remarkably safe these days. Oh, well, as I said I'm not sure how long this will take so please make sure to lock up when you leave if I don't make it back by then."

"Sure, Giles, that's no problem," she smiled, putting he keys in her pocket.

"Thank you, Willow." He looked over at Buffy, who was being particularly brutal to the training dummy with a quarterstaff at the moment. "Lift your right shoulder more, Buffy," he advised after a moment. She glanced at him, nodded, and did as instructed. The next blow removed what was left of the dummy's right arm, making her smile.

He sighed a little. Yet another one gone. Oh well.

Turning, he left the room to the sound of muted thwacks of wood on wood. He needed to track Jenny down and make inquiries as to her progress on a spell she'd mentioned.

* * *

"Peaceful, isn't it?" Xander asked, looking around the moonlit scene. The moon was full at the moment and cast more than enough light to let them see where they were going, although he had a good flashlight in his hand, and a stake in the other. In theory there were no vampires left within a hundred miles according to Angel, but he wasn't a _complete_ idiot.

"Quiet, certainly," Cordelia agreed, sipping the coffee she'd brought with her. "Although it's also kind of creepy. Why are we walking through the graveyard again?"

He looked at her, a slight smile on his face. "Because I wanted a burger and you followed me, saying that you were tired of sitting around in the library reading dusty old books looking for something that wasn't there to begin with. And then I said we should go for a walk. And here we are?" He spread his hands wide. "In Sunnydale's quietest suburb. These days, anyway."

She looked at him like he was stupid but he could see traces of a smirk under the carefully cultivated disdain. Cordelia, when you actually got to know the _real_ Cordelia, was actually an interesting person with a sense of humor that resonated well with his own. She just covered it up with uber-cheerleader and miss popular girl.

He felt that was a shame as the real Cordelia Chase was someone he'd have liked to have met a lot earlier in their lives. Although better late than never.

Recent events did seem to have changed things about all of them, he noted to himself as he flicked the flashlight on and aimed it at a movement he'd seen out of the corner of his eye, only to see a rabbit hastily hop away.

"Bit jumpy there, Harris," Cordelia snarked. "Did the scary bunny frighten you?"

He grinned. "They're terrifying. Haven't you ever seen Monty Python? The killer rabbit of Caerban-something. Vicious streak a mile wide, those things!"

She rolled her eyes. "First, it's Caerbannog, and second, the common Sunnydale Rabbit is only a rabbit. Little thing that hops around getting eaten by coyotes. Perfectly safe to humans."

He stopped and stared at her. "You _do_ watch Month Python!"

"Of course I do, it's a classic show," she told him, taking another sip of coffee. "And if you ever tell anyone I'll make your life absolute hell."

They shared a grin, then kept walking, slowly circling around to head back to the entrance. Xander really wasn't sure if this was a date, or a walk with a friend, or what the hell it was, but he was enjoying it. Cordelia seemed to be too as far as he could see.

"So what do you think will happen when SHE comes back?" he asked after a couple of companionably silent minutes.

Cordelia looked at him, then up at the moon. "No idea, but hopefully nothing terrible," she finally answered with a shrug. "I don't think it'll be anything either one of us can do anything about in any case, so why worry about it?"

"That's _a _way to look at it, I guess," he replied doubtfully. "Sort of fatalistic, but whatever."

He looked at her again, then slammed into something in front of him and bounced off.

Again, for the second time in two days.

"Damn it, I need to start looking where I'm going," he muttered to himself, holding his nose with both hands and wincing as he sat up.

"Xander."

"That really hurt," he added as he prodded the bruised appendage carefully with his fingers. "Ow."

"_Xander._"

"Nearly broke the fucking thing," he grumbled.

"_Xander!_"

Cordelia's voice had been growing more urgent, he suddenly realized, as the pain ebbed. He looked up at her to see her staring past him, her face directly illuminated by the full moon and appearing very pale even in the dim light.

Slowly he turned his head, then looked further up.

Glowing eyes above a grin full of teeth and under an impressive set of horns met his horrified gaze.

**"Greetings, Blessed Ones,"** the huge demon said in a voice like a cheerful rock crusher. One huge clawed hand came down, making Xander close his eyes, then yip a little as the thing very carefully picked him up by the back of his coat and set him on his feet. **"I fear your night vision is deficient,"** it added without rancor. **"This is only to be expected in a mere human, of course."**

Opening his eyes when nothing horrible happened he stared at the thing, which was just standing there watching them, then looked at Cordy whose eyes were so wide it looked like it hurt. "Um… Thanks?"

**"You are welcome,"** the demon replied with a small nod. **"SHE would want those SHE blessed with the gift of continued existence to remain undamaged until such time as SHE decided their lives were no longer worth preserving. We serve HER will."**

"So you keep saying," Xander mumbled, before slapping a hand over his mouth while Cordelia glared at him. "Sorry," he added in a tiny voice.

The huge demon laughed, the sound reverberating around the tombstones. It patted him on the head like a pet who'd done something clever. **"HER Mercy is as infinite as HER Rage, and as Glorious,"** it said. **"In all probability you will continue to exist, never fear."**

"That's… nice," he managed to say.

**"SHE will return very soon, having purged the lower realms of the unworthy,"** the demon commented, looking at them both. **"We have served HER will on this plane by removing those aspects SHE would consider offensive if they were not beneath HER notice. It has been an enjoyable exercise. SHE is a benevolent deity to those who follow HER guidance as we who have seen the Truth do."**

A squeak from Cordelia made Xander look away from the demon at her, then follow her eyes upwards. He emitted a remarkably similar squeak when he saw what she was looking at.

The absolutely _vast_ flying thing that was gently cruising overhead a few hundred feet above them like a scaly cloud peered downwards with glowing red eyes, seemed to inspect them all closely, then raised its head to look around. The wings flapped once, twice, the sound like a huge flag rippling in the wind, then it circled around and headed back across Sunnydale.

When he finally remembered to take a breath and lowered his gaze, he saw the demon was grinning at them. **"SHE even tamed the great beasts of the Umbral Plains, a feat none has ever managed before. Not even the Dark Lords who ruled before SHE destroyed them for their insolence could dream of such a thing. HER Rage is infinite and her Power unlimited."**

After a moment spent wrestling with his better judgment, and a look at Cordelia who was still staring after the dragon or whatever the fuck it was, the incomprehensibly vast creature barely visible as it disappeared into the night sky, Xander asked, "Who… _is_ SHE?"

The demon inspected him for close to a minute, during which he sweated a lot and hoped he hadn't made a terminal mistake. Eventually it chuckled, making the ground vibrate. **"I will tell you about the Glory of HER, the DOOM QUEEN, so that you might spread the Truth to those worthy of worshiping HER."** The thing leaned on a nearby crypt, the cross on top glowing a dull red then slowly slumping into a puddle that ran down the marble without it appearing to notice or care, although both Xander and Cordelia gaped in shock.

**"Betrayed by those SHE trusted, SHE was sent far from her home, to a place and a time outside HER knowledge,"** the demon began, while the two teenagers listened. **"SHE fought the forces arrayed against HER, over and over, never allowing defeat to stop HER beginning again, while learning all that could be learned from those who had gone before and those who stood against her. Succeeding where no other had done, SHE raged HER way across time, space, and dimension to finally arrive on the Umbral Plains, where SHE kept going without pause. All fell before HER unlimited Rage and Power, only those who were wise enough to comprehend the Truth allowed to live. SHE whittled the number living throughout Hell itself to almost nothing single-handedly, showing no mercy to all that opposed her yet passing over those who offered her no resistance."**

It paused, looking at them, with a small but toothy smile on its face. **"SHE is both merciless and merciful. All who stand against HER perish, but SHE will defend the innocent without hesitation. Becoming HER enemy is death, but HER followers know that to see the Truth is to live. We follow HER and worship HER Glory. HER Rage is a thing of true beauty to behold. SHE defeated the Dark Lords without hesitation, SHE destroyed the final Lord of Hell in personal combat, and SHE is the rightful Heir to Hell by right of conquest. SHE rules over us all and commands us to HER will, which we gladly follow for SHE is the DOOM QUEEN. HER knowledge is without peer, HER intelligence beyond mortal understanding, and HER will is unbendable and infinite."**

"So… SHE was human?" Xander asked rather hesitantly when the demon seemed to have stopped speaking.

It smirked at him. **"HER beginnings were humble but now SHE is our deity, far beyond your comprehension. Yet SHE remembers HER ancestry and values it. Despite HER travels through the multiverse, SHE always returns to HER family and HER home. And we follow, to serve HER will. Always following, always worshiping HER Glory, as is right and proper."**

"Huh," he managed to say in the end. "Cool."

**"It is most rewarding," **the demon nodded, looking pleased.

"And when SHE comes back, SHE will go home again and you guys will go too?" he asked somewhat nervously.

**"We will follow HER anywhere,"** it replied. **"But we will not predict HER motives, as they are HERS alone to say."**

It glanced at a nearby crypt, sniffed, then smiled a little grimly as Xander and Cordelia exchanged glances. **"It would appear that we have missed some vermin,"** the thing commented idly, in a lower voice. **"They are remarkably difficult to eradicate considering how depressingly weak they truly are."**

Xander looked suspiciously at the same crypt, the door of which showed signs of having been forced open recently now that he actually noticed. The moonlight was just bright enough to glint off some fresh scratches in the stonework. "Vampires?" he asked as he clutched his stake more firmly, while Cordelia pulled a spray bottle of holy water, one of her own ideas, out of her purse and held it ready.

**"Several of the small parasites you call such, indeed,"** the huge demon smiled. **"Would you like to deal with them or shall I?"**

Before Xander could reply, along the lines of 'by all means help yourself,' the door flew open and four vampires charged out, one holding a baseball bat and two of the others wielding machetes. Cordelia ducked to the side and spritzed her bottle frantically, doing little since she was too far away, while Xander jumped sideways as the bat-swinging one dived at him. "Holy shit!" he screamed, startled, and stabbed out with the stake.

"OW!" the vampire shouted as he got it in the shoulder by some fluke. "That hurt you little bastard!"

"GOOD!" he yelled back, dropping and rolling as it swung backhanded at him with the bat, then jumping to his feet and running around the demon, which was simply standing there watching with interest.

"Get back here," the vampire snarled as it chased him.

"Fuck off," he retorted, rounding the stationary demon for the second time and seeing that Cordelia was now on top of the crypt having apparently climbed straight up the side of it without hesitation. Fear for your life was a real motivator he thought hysterically as he ducked another swing of the bat. The other three vampires seemed to be concentrating on his companion, who was now spraying each grasping hand in turn and evoking howls of pain and clouds of smoke.

He reflected, not for the first time, on how stupid most vampires really were. Unfortunately they were also persistent and dangerous.

"A little help here?" he screamed at the demon while still running around it in circles pursued by the vampire which seemed to really hold a grudge. For some reason none of them appeared to have noticed the huge horned creature standing right there, which was more evidence that they were pretty dim.

The demon watched him go around it a couple more times, then reached down and grabbed the vampire by the head, lifting it clear of the ground without any effort at all. The thing yelled in shock and kicked the air while Xander stopped and bent over, breathing hard. "Thanks," he said.

**"You are most welcome, Blessed One," **the demon rumbled, still idly holding the vampire like it weighed nothing.

"Hey, get your ass over here and help me, Harris!" Cordelia yodeled in fury, now stamping on questing vampire fingers having run out of holy water. "I thought all these things were wiped out!"

"They missed some," he called, looking around for a moment, then finding what he was seeking.

"No, _really?_" she shouted with heavy sarcasm. "I would never have guessed."

He ran over to the crypt and swung the baseball bat the first one had dropped as hard as he could, hitting one vampire squarely on the head and knocking it flat. Before it recovered he stuck the bat under one arm, ripped his stake out of his belt, and slammed it into the thing's heart. Moments later it disappeared in a cloud of dust.

"Nigel!" one of the two remaining ones shouted in fury.

"Nigel?" he repeated, staring at it, before shrugging. Grabbing the bat again he took a stance as the other vampire charged him. He swung and slammed it in the side, but it kept going and flattened him in return. Moments later he was holding the bat by both ends and pressing it into the blood sucker's throat as it tried to bite him. "Jesus," he panted, "get off me you fucker."

"Just hold still so I can kill you," the vampire snarled.

A large hoof caught it in the side and flung it into the crypt hard enough that Xander heard bones shatter. He looked up to see the demon peering at him. **"Your will is strong but your strength... is not,"** the thing observed with an amused look.

"Very funny," he muttered as he painfully levered himself to his feet.

**"I thought so,"** it commented, making him give it an unfriendly look. He'd entirely stopped being worried about it by now, since it seemed completely non-hostile at least as far as Cordy and himself were concerned.

Picking the bat up again he ran over and clouted the final vampire on the top of the head with all his strength, the blow driving it to its knees, then kicked it in the crotch when it tried to get up. Cordelia, looking furious, scrambled down the side of the crypt, stalked over, yanked the stake out of his hand as he was about to use it, and viciously shoved it into the thing's chest.

All of them, including the demon, looked at the piece of wood sticking out of the vampire. "Holy hell, lady, that _hurts!_" the vampire whined.

**"Wrong side I believe,"** the demon remarked.

Cordelia sighed heavily, pulled the stake out, and stabbed it back in again a few inches to the left before the vampire had a chance to react. A moment later there was only a cloud of dust left. She whirled on the demon and shouted, "Why the hell didn't you kill them all? That's your thing! You guys kill vampires all the time but you left those ones alone? What's that about?"

**"I wished to see how the Blessed Ones would handle such a minor threat,"** it replied calmly. Waving the vampire still held in one hand by the head, muffled cursing coming from the entirely covered face, at the one lying in a groaning heap against the crypt with most of its bones shattered, it added, **"Your methods are inefficient and slow."**

"Well, not all of us can shoot fireballs, you know," she shouted.

The demon held out a hand palm up and a ball of fire grew in it. **"It is a simple enough process."**

"For a demon, yeah," the girl snapped. "If you didn't notice, we're just ordinary humans. And we're not HER."

**"Only SHE is HER,"** the demon smiled. It absently tossed the small fireball at the groaning vampire which didn't even have time to swear before it vanished in the ensuing explosion.** "All one does is reach down into the depths of rage that live inside all beings and extract some energy. Forming and guiding the fires of Hell is a simple matter. Even a mere Imp can do it."**

Xander and Cordelia looked at each other, then shook their heads. Yeah, life these days was bizarre, when you could have a conversation with a demon about hellfire and not have it seem all that peculiar considering what else was going on…

After a few seconds, Xander held up the bat he still had. "At least I got a bat out of it," he said brightly.

Cordelia glared at him. "And I broke a nail. And these shoes are _ruined_," she snarled. "Brilliant idea, Harris. Let's go for a walk in the cemetery. In _Sunnydale!_ You're an idiot."

"You didn't _have_ to follow me," he retorted, waving the bat experimentally. "Good balance."

"And _you!"_ Cordelia turned and leveled an accusing finger at the demon, which grinned at her. "Next time, just kill all the vampires before they ruin my shoes, got it?"

It bowed in an ironic manner.** "As the Blessed One commands,"** it said with a chuckle. Holding out the final vampire, it added, **"Do you require this parasite?"**

"Of course I don't want it!" she yelled.

**"Excellent." **The thing wound up and threw the screaming vampire straight up, getting a remarkable distance out of it, then aimed a hand at it. A fireball shot from the hand and neatly intercepted the vampire on the way down, the detonation as it disappeared echoing out across the cemetery.

"Pull!" Xander shouted, unable to help himself, then he started laughing.

Cordelia gave him a look before she turned and stomped off. He glanced at the demon, shrugged, and ran after her. "Hey, next time do you want to borrow my vampire bat?" he asked her. She punched him in the chest and kept going, muttering to herself, as he grinned and followed.

The demon shook his head. SHE had definitely found a highly entertaining place for a vacation. And some amusing humans.

Turning he went in the other direction, since he had other things to do.

* * *

Sam opened the door then stepped aside, allowing Rupert Giles and the Calendar woman to enter. Kendra looked over from the TV where she was watching the news, her face showing curiosity and some worry.

"I assume you made sure you weren't followed?" he asked as he closed the door. "The Council almost certainly has another team in Sunnydale."

"Jenny has a very effective invisibility spell she's managed to get working recently," Giles replied, indicating his companion. "Hello, Sam. And Kendra." He looked at the girl and smiled, before fixing his gaze on the other Watcher. "We need to talk."

"Yes, I believe we do," Sam said quietly, motioning towards the table. "About many things. Especially who SHE is and what she wants."

Giles sighed a little as he sat down, Jenny next to him with Sam and Kendra on the other side.

"I'll tell you what I know, and what I suspect, if you will do the same?"

"I think comparing notes is probably a good idea at this point," Sam nodded. "Kendra has seen some rather unsettling things in Sunnydale, and more worryingly some rather unsettling things have seen _her_. And talked to her for that matter..."

After a pause to collect his thoughts, Giles started talking, both Sam and his Slayer becoming more and more worried as time passed.


	23. Omake - DOOM R&R: Lurking Demon, Hidden

**Omake - DOOM R&R: Lurking Demon, Hidden Slayer**

* * *

_ I think this is the second to last one now. I know I said the previous one was the second to last one, which would make this the last one, but as it clearly _ ** _isn't _ ** _the last one, the previous one must have in fact been the _ ** _third _ ** _to last one. Which means, of course, that the next one is the last one._

_Unless it isn't…_

_We shall find out. Anyway, have wordz, read wordz, enjoy wordz._

_ By order of HER._

* * *

**"SHE is very near the point of return to this plane of existence,"** a sub-bass voice rumbled from nearly next to Kendra, who emitted a sharp yip of shock having had no idea at all anyone or anything was there. She whirled around with a stake in her hand, only to stop when she spotted the same demon as the one that had surprised her the first time, and more than once since then.

It was _much_ sneakier than you'd think possible considering how enormous it was. And it had a weird sense of humor too, she was convinced of that. The blasted thing was smirking at her even now, having apparently been amused by her jumping about six inches in the air.

"Don't _do_ that," she snapped, lowering the stake. Not that it would have done any good at all, of course. A week ago she'd never had expected that she'd actually relax a little in the presence of something like this, but it really did seem that they were largely non-hostile, at least for now and at least to humans.

They went through vampires like a threshing machine through a kindergarten, but that was fine as far as she was concerned. And while she found the entire current situation in Sunnydale _unbelievably_ strange, it seemed to if anything be far preferable to the previous state of affairs. Even with all these bizarre creatures wandering the night.

Looking around she saw that they were alone, as far as she could tell. Not that this necessarily proved the fact as there could be more than one of the things lurking somewhere close by and she'd probably never know unless it wanted her to, but there were no people around, certainly. Considering it was well after dark that was pretty much to be expected. The nightlife in Sunnydale had been until recently far too enthusiastic for most people's liking, even if they apparently didn't actually consciously know why. The end result was far less in the way of bystanders after the sun went down.

Sunnydale Syndrome was very real, and very peculiar. And even though it might not be necessary now with the lack of vampires prowling the night it would probably be a thing for years. Which might be good if the damn vamps actually came back, of course.

She looked back at the demon, which was casually leaning on the side of the elevator motor house on the roof of the five story office building she'd been using as a lookout position for a couple of days now, since it gave an excellent view of a lot of the downtown area. "Did you want something or are you just bored?" she asked rather acidly, not having enjoyed the sudden shock.

It grinned again with a small nod of the huge horned head.** "Once SHE has returned, we will follow HER when SHE leaves this plane. I have no knowledge of whether SHE will grace you with HER presence in future, nor would I presume to speak for HER. It is possible SHE may deign to pass this way again, or SHE may not. We have enjoyed our time here and find you all quite interesting."**

It looked over her head, making her follow the thing's gaze, which seemed to be on another building a few hundred meters away. After a moment it looked back to her, seeming to show a certain level of sly amusement. Which was entirely normal in her experience. **"For such a small predator you show some promise. And are more patient than the other one. It has been… fascinating… to watch your methods."** The demon's smile widened. **"Even those of your clan who lack the infinitesimal traces of power you and the other one possess appear to show considerable courage in the face of adversity. In some ways, very _limited_ ways, you bear some resemblance to HER at HER beginning so long ago."**

It smirked down at her from several feet above her head.** "Not that this in any way implies you are more significant than the dirt beneath HER glorious feet, of course."**

"Of course," Kendra grated. They were like that. Almost complimentary at times, while making it abundantly clear that the only reason they didn't kill you was because SHE wouldn't want them to.

**"But it does suggest that eventually you may be able to rise to the level of minor irritant,"** it added with a definite air of mildly malicious glee.** "You might even manage to become someone SHE would personally deal with, gaining the honor of defeat at HER hands."**

"I look forward to it," Kendra said as calmly as she could, while squeezing the stake hard enough to make the wood crack slightly.

**"Undoubtedly,"** the demon nodded. It looked past her again for a moment. **"As our time on this plane is most likely limited, I thought I might point out that you and your associates have been watched by those even less worthy than you are. Were you aware of this?"**

She looked over her shoulder, then turned around to stare at the same building it was. After a moment she spotted a tiny motion, at this range nearly invisible, and a slight glint of light. The sort of glint that might well come from a reflection from a night scope on a rifle.

Frowning, she said, "We suspected they were there but I haven't seen them before."

**"They have been observing you continuously since you arrived, and the others too. We have been observing ****_them_**** in turn." **With a grin the demon added, **"They do not realize this of course."**

"That one will report you speaking to me," she pointed out.

**"****_That_**** one has no idea I am here, nor that you are either," **it said calmly and with a note of satisfaction apparent.** "We are not seen if we do not wish it, and we did not feel that showing ourselves to your observers was necessary at this time."** It looked at her, smiling yet again. It seemed to be in a good mood even compared to how it normally was. **"Also it is more amusing to anticipate their reaction should we reveal our presence."**

She couldn't help snickering. Yes, that was something she could easily picture and rather hoped she'd see if they did it.

The thing studied her for a few seconds, then held out an enormous hand, opening it. **"Because we find you entertaining we thought it appropriate to give you this," **it said as she looked at the small silvery object in the demon's hand. It was oddly difficult to focus on and seemed to have a faint pink-purple glow coming from somewhere inside it, the overall effect being that of a weird little almost-ball about one and a half centimeters across. It was attached to a chain that seemed to be meant to go around the neck.

"What is it?" she asked warily.

Hooking a talon on the forefinger of the other hand through the chain, the demon held it up. **"A very small amount of power designed to conceal the user and the user's companions from those who might wish them ill. It may help you survive long enough to become good sport for HER."** It gave her another smirk. **"As it would be a shame should you meet your end through some mere accident of fate rather than in glorious if pointless battle."**

"Of course," she replied, suppressing a sigh. Considering the thing in the demon's hand, she wondered if it was a good idea for close to a minute, but finally held out her own hand. He dropped it into her palm, the metallic object warm and sending a tingling through her entire body. She'd handled a couple of magical artifacts in the past, one that was supposedly a force for good and one that very definitely wasn't, and neither of them produced anything _close_ to the level of eerie power this little thing did.

Sam would probably shout at her, possibly with good reason, she thought as she slipped the chain over her head and tucked the small widget into her shirt, but for some reason she genuinely believed the demon was being helpful. Most likely because he saw some amusement value to giving her such a powerful and useful artifact, of course, but it was still likely to be something that would come in handy sooner or later.

**"It does not work on ****_us_, of course,"** he commented as he watched her, a small smile still present. She gave him a look which made him chuckle. **"However you will likely discover it works on various lesser beings. Which almost all are, clearly."**

"Clearly," she repeated, shaking her head.

He glanced over at the hidden Council observer, then looked back to her. **"Until we meet again, small predator,"** he said, taking a step back into the shadows. She blinked and he was gone, again without a trace or any indication of _how._

The damn things were _unnervingly_ good at that, she grumbled to herself as she peered around, then turned to stare hard in the direction the not-quite-as-hidden-as-he-thought man was lurking.

After a moment or two, she lifted the thing around her neck into view and inspected it, before a grin nearly as nasty as the big demon's one crossed her face. Slipping it back into place, she quickly headed for the fire escape down to street level, and a practical test of her little toy.

* * *

Leaning back in his office chair, Giles put the pen down with a faint sign of relief, opening and closing a hand near the point of cramp. He glanced around at the sound of his office door opening then closing again, to see Jenny studying him. She looked at the leather-bound book he'd been writing in, then him flexing his hand, before smiling a little.

"You do realize that there are things called computers now, English?" she asked with a look of mild amusement. "Or even typewriters, if you insist on being stuck in the nineteenth century. Either would be faster than doing it the hard way."

He smiled back, opening one of the drawers and pulling out a bottle and two small glasses, then filling both of them. "Infernal machines are not my forte, as you know," he retorted, putting the bottle away then picking up both glasses, handing her one. She took it with a small laugh.

"Even the mechanical ones?"

"_Especially_ the mechanical ones," he muttered, sipping some very decent whiskey for something made in the Colonies. She giggled and followed suite, wandering over to peer at his book. Reaching past him she flipped back a page which he didn't prevent, then nodded slowly.

"How much of this are you going to pass on to Tweed Central," she asked. He sighed, as Xander's name for the Council seemed to amuse her far more than ideal, and she seemed to enjoy saying it as much as she could get away with. That aside it was a decent question.

"I am currently unsure," he admitted. "The information Xander and Cordelia brought us is… unnerving. Assuming it's true."

"it's even more unnerving if it's _not_ because it leaves us totally in the dark as to what these new demons are, or where they come from," she pointed out, sitting on the end of his desk and taking another sip of spirits while watching his face. "Assuming that it _is_ true we at least have a working explanation, even if that explanation is completely terrifying in a way."

"Indeed," he replied with a nod after a moment. He looked down at his notes, turning back a number of pages with one hand as he thought. "Combining all that we have directly seen, what Xander and Cordelia were told, and what Sam and Kendra have learned, does seem to give a picture that holds together in a reasonably internally consistent manner, I agree. I don't _like_ it but it's probably less disturbing than assuming that it's all entirely wrong. And it would shed some light on all the other odd occurrences we've noted over the last few weeks. If we admit they're all connected to this Doom Queen, Taylor Hebert, it makes the situation _slightly_ less puzzling if no less worrying."

"Have you found out more about Wolfram and Hart that might explain why they seem to have been targeted so much?" she asked, watching him.

He grimaced. "As it happens, yes, I have," he said, shaking his head. "It turns out that they are definitely in some manner connected with true evil. More so than most law firms, certainly." She grinned momentarily at his words then looked serious again. "Angel has done a lot of digging and called in a number of favors from some unusual sources," he went on, finishing the scotch then idly turning the glass in his fingers while looking at the light reflecting from it. "With the information he provided I made some inquiries of my own once I knew what to ask. I strongly suspect that the company is actually a front for one or more high level demons. And may well have been responsible for a very large number of horrific occurrences throughout a significant amount of history."

Jenny looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"There are old stories about three demons, the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart," he added. "Those names appear in many places dating back to prehistory. I find this… more than a coincidence."

She slowly nodded, thinking over his words. "I have to admit that the names are definitely suspicious. So if these demons set up a demonic law firm centuries ago, why did they do that? And what have they been doing? And, of course, why are they suddenly having a very hard time?"

"I would imagine that the first point is to allow them to more directly interfere in the affairs of humanity, and the second point is most likely answered by the word '_evil_.' If even a fraction of the stories and rumors I've collected are correct, they're behind a number of the worst atrocities in history in one way or another. Always very discreetly, and behind the scenes, but the links are there if you know where to look and how. And I suggest that the third point is down to our '_Doom Queen_' deciding that they made a suitable target for her attentions."

"Or possibly her… minions? Subjects?" Jenny searched for the right word. "Followers, maybe. But perhaps those guys decided to do something about the demonic law firm all by themselves. We do seem to have reports that match what's wandering around Sunnydale coming in from all over the world now. They get around."

"They do, yes," he agreed heavily. "Far too well and far too easily. I find myself very puzzled as to precisely how they manage that, but I may well never know for certain."

They looked at each other for a few seconds, then both turned to look out the window into the dark of the night. "On the other hand, normal evil seems to be having a very bad time of it since she jumped into the Hell Mouth," Jenny commented quietly. "Which would seem to in fact be a _good_ thing."

"True," he nodded.

"And we've all encountered at least one of these things without anything other than it being somewhat of a shock," she added thoughtfully. "Xander has met several of them and that one the other night appeared from what he said to be quite helpful if anything. And finding all this entertaining to boot. Not to mention Buffy has actually _attacked_ them at least six times without anything worse happening than getting embarrassed when they laugh at her."

Giles winced a little. His Slayer had not been happy about that. Her pride had taken something of a hit. "Also true," he replied.

"So, even if they're not actually on the side of the angels, perhaps they're at least on our side?" she remarked. "Or worst case they're on their side and it happens to coincide with an outcome we'd be all right with? I'll take hideously dangerous but non-hostile demons from literal hell over vampires running around all over the place eating people any day."

"Only in Sunnydale would that comment not mark one as a complete lunatic," he sighed. "However, I can't dispute your words. I only hope that there isn't an unpleasant sting in the tail..."

She shrugged, shaking her head. "I can't say one way or the other. I suppose all we can do is wait to see what happens. But at least a lot less people are getting killed at the moment, so there's that."

"Quite." He reached out and closed the book, picking it up and locking it into the drawer of his desk. "I'm going to have to carefully consider how much of this I report to the Council. I fear that if I pass on everything verbatim we'll be up to our necks in annoyingly obtuse Council forces within hours. I strongly suspect that there are certain people who would seize on this as something that either needs stamping out, or attempting to turn to their advantage. Neither option fills me with a sense of joy as I fear the result would be somewhere between horribly embarrassing to utterly catastrophic."

"I can't see it working out they way they'd want myself either," she chuckled. "Do you really think _they'd_ think they could subvert the forces of Hell to their own ends?"

He gave her a look. "Considering what has happened in the past with the Watcher's Council, and indeed how it began in the first place, I wouldn't like to assume that they would be sensible enough to leave well enough alone," he sighed. "There are certainly people in the group who are… less cautious… than they should rightly be if they see a situation they believe could be helpful to their own goals, and some of those people have more ambition than genuine common sense. And they tend to see people aside from them as rather more disposable than I like."

Jenny studied his face, then looked out the window again for a moment. "That could end very badly."

"And extremely quickly," he replied with a small nod. "Which is probably not in anyone's best interests, so I suggest we need to be very careful what we tell to whom. We're going to need to have another talk with Sam, I believe, and discuss our options before either one of us files another report. And we have to work out to do about that blasted special operations team I am certain is lurking out there somewhere."

"Assuming that a demon didn't eat them," she snorted, smiling.

"We are unlikely to have been so fortunate," he grumbled, standing up and retrieving his jacket. "Are you able to work that impressively effective spell once more?"

"I think I can manage," she smiled.

"In that case, would you like to accompany me to see an old friend?" he asked, offering his arm.

She hooked hers through his and laughed. "It would be my pleasure, English."

Feeling somewhat pleased under the omnipresent worry, Giles turned out the lights as they left.

* * *

"No sighting of Slayer Young yet," Overwatch One reported quietly, scanning the building he knew the girl had made use of several times in the last few days. There wasn't a trace of the younger Slayer, and in fact no movement at all at that location. Carefully shifting the bipod-mounted weapon to the left, he focused on the second high point she'd been seen using, but that was also clear. "She may have changed her pattern. Shall I relocate to the beta site and check there, or should I hold position here in case she turns up?"

After a few seconds, his earpiece produced the reply. _"Roger, Overwatch One. Hold position for a further ten minutes. If she is a no show by then, move to beta location and resume observation. Overwatch Three reports Watcher Giles and Janna Kalderash left gamma location fifteen minutes ago but he lost track of them shortly after that. We don't know where they are at this point in time. If you sight them report in immediately."_

"Roger, Team Leader. Do they take priority over Slayer Young?"

_"Negative, Overwatch One. Overwatch Three and Overwatch Four are tasked with their surveillance. Merely report any sightings of them, we will handle the rest. Slayer Summers and the Vampire Angelus are known to be on the move, apparently patrolling, with Overwatch Five observing. Be warned that based on their previous patrol patterns there is a small chance they will pass by the gamma site within one hour, so ensure you stay well out of sight if they do. Remember your training."_

Overwatch One rolled his eyes. Talk about teaching your grandma to suck eggs…

"Confirmed, Team Leader." After a moment's thought, he added, "Are we interested in the movements of any other local contacts of Slayer Summers?"

_"Not at this time, Overwatch One. All remaining contacts are known to be at home and are likely to remain there until morning. Concentrate on Slayer Young's movements. We don't want her meeting up with Watcher Giles or Slayer Summers. There has been no obvious indication that Xander Harris mentioned his encounter with her to them, but we can't assume this to be the case. It's possible they will try some clandestine counter-operation. Keep alert for _**_anything_**_ out of the ordinary."_

"In Sunnydale?" he asked, almost smirking for a second. There was a snicker over the channel, although not from Team Leader, who was famous for not having the faintest hint of a sense of humor.

_"The irony is not lost on me, Overwatch One. Team Leader out."_

Shaking his head, Overwatch One panned the rifle back to the first building, flicking to thermal imaging mode to make sure nothing was hiding in the shadows too deep for his night scope to peer through. Seeing nothing, he slowly scanned down the building, spotting a few small bright spots that were clearly rats, and one slightly bigger one that was probably a cat. Motion caught his eye and he quickly panned to the side at ground level, seeing a human sized form walking rapidly along the sidewalk, then switched back to night vision only to see it was some random pedestrian who was looking around nervously and nearly running.

Mildly amused at the expression on the man's face, he watched until he disappeared around the corner, then raised the rifle again to reinspect the roof for the umpteenth time. Still no sign of the blasted girl. Where the hell was she?

Eventually the time in his scope clicked over to the ten-minute mark, so he carefully and silently packed everything away into his innocent-looking case, closed it, and wriggled out of the observation post he'd set up between two air conditioning stacks. Quickly brushing himself down, he made sure he hadn't left anything identifiable behind, scuffed out any traces of his presence on the gravel covering the roof, and left. He'd be at the beta site in five minutes, and with any luck would pick up Slayer Young's trail again.

This whole exercise was somewhat tedious in his opinion, although he'd do his duty without fail. No one had yet seen a trace of the alleged 'unknown demonic presence' and he was beginning to wonder if it even existed. Demons were tricky things, he knew that full well, but it was suspicious that not one sign of them had been encountered. Possibly this entire exercise was ultimately a futile one sparked off by one of the higher-ups getting a bee in his bonnet about some random misunderstanding. It had happened before.

Well, it wasn't his place to question the mission, only to fulfill it, so that's what he'd do. It paid well after all and he was keeping the world safe from the forces of evil, which was a nice bonus.

* * *

Kendra watched the black-clad man disappear over the edge of the roof, his cased weapon slung over his back, and smiled grimly. He hadn't had a clue she was there and she'd heard some interesting things from mere feet away.

Turning her head she looked at the clawed horror that was squatting on the other side of the roof. She nodded to it.

It nodded back, then moved to follow the Council wet-works guy. Smirking to herself she went the other way. Sam needed to know what she'd learned.

* * *

"And if we do this, like so, we should be able to increase the firing rate by nearly six percent," Fred explained, quickly drawing a diagram. Taylor examined it closely, then checked the equations the young woman had written out.

"Not bad. Checks out," she nodded with a smile. "Want to try it?"

"I do, yes," Fred replied firmly. "There are still a few left after all."

"Fine by me," her new friend and savior told her, picking up the energy gun and handing it to her along with a tool kit. "Go for it."

Grinning savagely, Fred quickly stripped the weapon and started making careful changes to the innards, illuminated from below by a bluish glow from the fusion cell and whistling under her breath.

Taylor watched, feeling a sense of satisfaction how well things had worked out on this vacation. It would be time to go back shortly, but Fred was having fun too, so there was no sense rushing it.


	24. DOOMed XIV: The Storm Before The DOOM

Sophia didn't have time to even shout, never mind evade, before she felt a stunning shock to the back of her neck that lit up her entire body like she'd stuck her finger into a wall socket. As she dropped limply to the ground, she twisted around and spotted Armsmaster looking as grim as she'd ever seen him, some sort of device in his hand, standing in the doorway to her bedroom.

The world faded to black before she felt herself hit the floor.

* * *

Snapping awake at the hammering on the door, Alan Barnes blurrily wondered what the hell was going on before his mind caught up with reality and he sat up in bed, blinking. Beside him his wife Zoe did the same, her eyes wide. The sound of thunderous knocking came again, followed immediately by a splintering noise and a crash. He instantly realized that someone had kicked the door in and dived for the bedside table, wrenching the drawer open and fumbling for the pistol he kept there even though Zoe didn't like it. In this city you couldn't be too careful.

Footsteps on the stairs approached at a run, as he grabbed the magazine in the same drawer and tried to get it into the weapon, his hands shaking. Before he'd quite managed it, the bedroom door slammed open and two black-clad figures charged in. Even as he recognized with a shock the PRT logo on their armor each of them aimed at him and Zoe with some sort of high tech gun, then there was a sizzling zap sound and he slumped, feeling consciousness slip away. Dimly he heard screams from elsewhere in the house as his daughters reacted to the intruders with shock, a couple more zaps, then everything went away.

As he lost consciousness he was trying to work out why the PRT had invaded his house, but didn't have time to even begin to come up with a reason.

* * *

Madison, trembling, hid in her bedroom closet and listened to the shouts from her father and mother, which abruptly stopped after a pair of closely spaced strange electrical arcing sounds. Heavy footsteps came down the hallway, stopped outside her bedroom door for a second, then there was the distinct click of her door opening. She pressed herself back into the cloths hung above her, clutching her knees to her chest, as the footsteps came remorselessly across the room directly towards the closet.

Again, they stopped, there was a slight noise that sounded sort of like a very quiet radio crackle, the sort of thing you'd hear on TV, then the closet was pulled open.

She closed her eyes after seeing a pair of black boots standing right there, her heart hammering in terror.

The sudden zap and blackness rather came as a relief at that point.

* * *

Standing in her office looking out across the city from the position far above the street, Emily pondered the sad remnants of the Medhall building, which looked like something had tried very close to successfully to eat it. How it was still standing was something of a mystery, and it was clearly close to that no longer being a thing that it did. There was a five hundred yards exclusion zone around it being enforced by the BBPD, just in case it decided to fall over before it was pulled down.

She inspected the enormous hole halfway up, multiple floors visible through it, then scanned over the other gaps in the facade on the two sides she could see. At least one of them went clear through the entire structure and she could easily make out part of the Docks area beyond it. The whole building had a slight but definite lean to the south and the VTOL pilot who had retrieved Kaiser and his two remaining capes from the roof of it some hours ago had been quite unenthusiastic about actually landing on the thing, feeling that his luck might well run out if he tried. Still, he'd managed to get the passengers on board without incident and all three of them were now downstairs in holding cells designed specifically to cater for their abilities.

None of them were going anywhere.

The horrifying thing was that all three of them were grateful of the fact.

Renick was about to start the interrogations and she expected to learn a vast amount of very interesting data, which was a small good outcome of a night that was otherwise a total unmitigated disaster. One that was still ongoing, of course, since Overkill was still out there and she had no reason to think was likely to be in a good mood, one way or another. Hence the unprecedented meeting with local capes last night, and the orders she'd given a little while after New Wave and the rest left.

With a sigh, Emily shook her head wearily. Sooner or later, probably sooner, she was going to crash and crash hard, the stimulants she'd flatly blackmailed Armsmaster into giving her would wear off in a big way. She was certainly going to pay for that, and the doctor would be excessively annoyed about it, but she needed to see this through first.

Making a mental note to finally ask Panacea to do something about her issues and firmly pushing her instinctive revulsion over Parahuman powers down, she looked in a different direction.

The vast crater that had very abruptly and loudly replaced Winslow High School was easily visible from here, a couple of miles away. Once again she marveled at the sheer size of the glass-lined hole, which looked like something out of a movie it was so incongruous. Yet it was very real too, and even from here in the light of early morning she could see a faint shimmer of heat above it. Armsmaster's readings suggested it would be cooling down for days yet, although it had finally stopped glowing just before dawn broke.

She shivered at the thought of that much power in the hands of someone so young and so utterly furious.

On the other hand, at least the girl had, somehow, reduced collateral damage to an implausible minimum. She was utterly merciless when provoked but one thing you could definitely say was that her violence was very carefully targeted. And pretty fucking final.

Looking towards the eastern residential area where the Hebert home lay, she wondered if Overkill had even bothered to go to sleep yet. Or take that armor off. Not that she was planning on doing _anything at all_ to find out. The longer Taylor Hebert and her blasted father stayed out of things the happier she'd be.

She had a horrible feeling it wasn't going to be long, one way or another. And she was pretty much on her own in a situation where the smallest misstep could end up with an entire city looking just like what used to be Winslow currently did.

Not something she wanted to see. Especially from the inside.

So she'd taken measures that were undoubtedly at best skirting the edge of illegality if not merrily galloping full tilt for the middle of it while whooping and hollering. Sooner or later she was most likely going to have to account for her actions, but as she'd been thinking a lot in the last day, that was something she'd worry about if and when she actually reached that point. Right now she had far more important things to worry about.

Like, for example, where the _fuck_ the high level PRT people had buggered off too.

No one seemed to have the faintest idea where the Chief Director had gone, or even when, and certainly not why. She'd simply disappeared at some point in the last twenty four hours, without trace or message. If it wasn't for the fact that none of the alarms she was constantly surrounded by had been triggered Emily would think she'd been abducted, but the sheer amount of technology and paranoia surrounding the woman made that fairly unlikely. It seemed more plausible that she'd arranged her own disappearance but why and how Emily didn't have the first idea. And she wasn't going to sit around with her thumb up her ass waiting for her to turn up either.

Alexandria, Eidolon, and Legend also seemed to have vanished at much the same time, which suggested some common link, and the most likely one she could think of lived far too close for her liking. Possibly they were all holed up together somewhere plotting on what to do about Overkill, but of course even if that was true they hadn't had the decency to let Emily or the PRT ENE in on it. Again, this was not uncommon, there were quite a few things that had happened, or not happened, over the years that made her suspect that Brockton Bay was more or less hung out to dry. But at least they normally answered the goddamn phone and gave her some bullshit about why they were doing nothing useful, rather than dropping off the face of the planet…

She turned away from the window and the golden light of the slowly rising sun that was casting huge shadows across the scene in an annoyingly pretty way as if nothing had happened, walking over to her chair and sitting down with a wince of pain. After a moment's thought, she shrugged and pulled out a small bottle, unscrewing the lid and shaking a pill into her other hand. Flipping it into her mouth she washed it down with a swig from the water bottle on the desk, then shuddered slightly as it instantly made her head feel like it was going to burst into flames for a brief moment until everything settled down. The tiredness immediately vanished, swept away in the rush from the Tinker stimulant, leaving the world in sharp focus but feeling slightly brittle around the edges.

Yeah, when she went down she was _really_ going down, she decided with a snort as she put the lid back on the bottle and put it in her pocket. One left, and Armsmaster had quite seriously told her that taking all of them in her condition would likely kill her, so it was best not to.

After a moment, she took it out again and locked it in her desk, just to remove temptation.

Pulling one of the tablets that was in a small stack of them closer, she tapped the screen twice, then scrolled slowly through the document that was displayed there, reading it carefully. Making a few notes on another one with one hand, she thought carefully. This next part was a gamble, a big one, and if she got it wrong the end result would probably cause more than a few problems. It might well do that _anyway_. But she couldn't see any other choice under the circumstances.

A knock on the door made her look up. It opened to reveal Armsmaster, who came in followed by Renick, and Captain Williams, one of her own people. All three of them arrayed themselves in front of her, all three looking grim and unhappy.

"Renick. Results from the initial Kaiser interview?"

"Not good," he replied, shaking his head. "The E88 is, or was, into everything. We've already grabbed two of their moles in our own _building_, found three more people who were on their payroll at a lower level, and uncovered half a dozen in the BBPD, the FD too, and even the Brockton Coastguard. All are being arrested right now, and we've locked down absolutely everything in sight."

"Which led us to discover that our entire computer system has been compromised, quite likely for some years," Armsmaster added with a scowl like his chin was making a fist under his beard. He looked quietly furious.

"Kaiser managed that?" she asked, shocked. "_How?"_

"Not Kaiser. It was obviously an inside job." Armsmaster shook his head. "One done by someone with top level access over at least three years. Dragon and I have correlated a large number of logs and other data and the only suspect that plausibly could have done it is Thomas Calvert."

She stared at him for several seconds, then squeezed the tablet in her hands so hard the screen shattered. Dropping it to the floor without even bothering to look at it, she leaned forward and fixed him with a hard look. "Calvert?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Are you _certain?_"

"We are, yes. There's no other candidate who could have done it without at least six separate accomplices and most likely a high level Thinker. Calvert, however, had access to every single system during the relevant times we can show that the exploits were installed, and we can prove he was also present at times that match those. There is a ninety nine point eight four percent likelihood of him being the architect of the compromised system."

"We've so far traced a number of illicit accesses made through the subverted systems to somewhere in the commercial district," Renick told her. "It's going to take longer to narrow it down, but we will. Most likely he has a rented office or something of that nature that he's using to tap our systems, probably full of servers. He's been siphoning data from us the entire time, all the way up to top secret classification material, and I for one would very much like to ask him why and what he was doing with it."

"I would as well," she grated. "Quite forcefully. Do we have him in custody?"

"Unfortunately not," Armsmaster replied.

"_Why not?_" she demanded.

"We can't find him," he admitted with a sigh. "His house is empty, although there are no signs of a hasty exit. By all appearances he left intending to come back, but… didn't. Nor is he in any of the usual locations and no one has seen him that we've been able to find for at least forty eight hours. We've got his description out across the state, BBPD has locating him as a top priority task, and there are several teams canvassing everywhere we have any suspicion at all he might be. We'll find him sooner or later, but it may take a while. In the mean time we're removing all the compromised hardware for deeper forensic examination and replacing it with equipment from spare stock. That will take several days to complete."

Emily massaged her hand, finally looking at it to see there were a couple of small cuts on it from the broken screen. Muttering to herself she dug out a can of aerosol bandage and gave her hand a quick squirt, hissing in pain as the cool spray turned into a sharp sting for a moment until it solidified into a transparent flexible coating.

"Do you need to visit the infirmary?" Renick asked, watching. She shook her head, dropping the can back into the drawer and slamming it shut.

"That can wait. OK. One disaster after another, apparently." With a look at Armsmaster, she continued, "At least tell me that you got everyone you went after other than Calvert."

Now he looked darkly satisfied. "Yes. I acquired Shadow Stalker in her home without trouble. She is in a holding cell wearing suitable restraints, currently unconscious, but unharmed."

"And her family?"

"Also in holding, not in contact with her. They are quite upset but nothing we can't handle."

Nodding, she looked at Captain Williams who was standing at parade rest and listening calmly. "The other two?"

"My teams retrieved the Barnes family and the Clements family without difficulty, Ma'am," he reported. "There were no injuries although there was a small amount of property damage. They made sure that both houses were secure before leaving. All personnel of interest are in the low-security cells with a guard on hand. No problems to report although they are highly upset about it, not surprisingly."

"I can imagine," she said with a small sigh. "Good. We're never going to hear the end of it, but good." Turning back to Renick, she asked, "Any further news from the Chief Director's office?"

He shook his head. "No. I've tried several times and I get the impression that everyone is frantically running around trying to figure out what the hell they should be doing. The problems reported with Thinkers world wide has seriously impacted normal operations, and even without that problem, Overkill's exploits across the entire planet are occupying the attention of virtually everyone. Almost every military or intelligence agency that exists is on high alert and trying to work out the next move, but no one seems to want to be the first to jump in." He paused, then added, "I suspect that none of them yet know she's here in the city. We may get a lot of very upset visitors when they _do_ realize that."

"Which will make a bad situation far worse, in all probability," she snarled. "Wonderful. Let's see if we can keep them in the dark for long enough to try to keep a lid on the whole thing, shall we? I don't want Overkill wiping out the fucking US army or something because they interrupted her breakfast."

She got up and shuffled through the stack of still functional tablets, choosing three, as the others exchanged glances. "You think she actually could?" Williams finally asked.

Looking at him for several long seconds, she then turned her head and looked meaningfully at the distant crater through the window, before returning her gaze to him. "You think she _couldn't?_" she inquired with a flat look.

The captain followed her eyes, then nodded his understanding. "Ma'am. I believe you are right."

"I'd really prefer not to find out," she said as she headed for the door. "Let's go and put the fear of Overkill into some extremely stupid girls and see if we can somehow prevent a PR nightmare."

All of them trailed after her, looking both thoughtful and very worried.

* * *

Blinking, Sophia stared at the ceiling, wondering why her bedroom had been repainted a strange color when she wasn't looking.

Then the memories came back, and she quickly looked around, seeing Miss Militia standing in the doorway of what was obviously a Parahuman containment cell, one of the ones in the PRT building basement. "What the _fuck_ is going on?" she shouted at the top of her voice, only then realizing that her hands were cuffed behind her back and she was lying on them. Apparently on some sort of bed, based on the feeling of cloth under her skin. Instinctively trying to phase through the bindings she yelped in pain when she instantly got a vicious electric shock that made her arms nearly go numb.

Miss Militia, her eyes hard above her bandanna, shook her head. "You won't be able to use your powers, Shadow Stalker. Armsmaster made those restraints specifically to block them."

"Why am I here?" she demanded, twitching as the pain ebbed away. She wasn't about to try _that_ again because it had fucking _hurt_. Swiveling around on the bed she sat up, lowering her head when it promptly started spinning until the feeling faded.

"The Director wants to talk to you," the older woman replied. Sophia stared at her in disbelief.

"And she decided to _assault and kidnap me on my night off_ because she wants to _talk_ to me?" she spat when she finally realized the other woman was serious.

Miss Militia locked her eyes on Sophia. "She wants to talk to you _very urgently_," she replied in tones that made the girl lean back. "Get up, follow me, and don't try _anything_ stupid or you really will not enjoy the results. You're on far thinner ice than you understand at this point."

Wondering what in god's name had crawled up _her_ ass and died, Sophia grudgingly did as ordered, then went after the older hero. As she left the cell a pair of heavily armed troopers fell in behind, and she noticed with a sense of foreboding that they were carrying the high powered taser pistols as well as shotguns, rather than foam projectors. Neither man had the air of someone who would hesitate to shoot either.

She had a very bad feeling about this whole thing, especially after whatever had happened last night. The massive explosion that lit the entire city had made her wonder, but decide in the end to avoid an off-the-books patrol since by the number of sirens the entire PRT _and_ BBPD were charging about like an upset hornet's nest. Probably better to avoid drawing attention to herself, especially so soon after Hebert had vanished and people were already giving her funny looks.

The little procession headed up the stairs to three floors above ground level, finally ending at a conference room she'd seldom been in. Miss Militia pushed the door open and stepped to the side. Walking in, Sophia stopped dead when she saw Emma and her family sitting on one side of the large square table, Madison and _her_ parents on the other side, and Sophia's own mother and brother on the side nearest the door. At the far end Director Piggot was glowering at her.

"What the hell is this?" she said, by now more than just _worried_. It was pretty obvious that this was connected to the locker prank and whatever had happened to that worm Hebert.

"_This_ is the most important meeting you will ever have in your life, Sophia, so _sit down, shut up, and listen hard,_" Director Piggot said, sounding furious and disgusted.

"Why are _they_ here?" she asked, stalling for time as she frantically tried to work out some way out of this.

"Because it concerns all of you, you idiotic little asshole," Piggot snarled. She pointed at the only unoccupied chair. "Sit. Down."

A hand on her back urged her onwards, causing her to glare at Miss Militia, who just returned the look with one of somewhat worrying blankness. Eventually, realizing she had no choice in the matter after she looked over her shoulder and saw that the PRT troopers were standing in the door blocking it, she complied with ill grace. "You going to take these off?" she asked nastily, wiggling her fingers to indicate the restraints.

"No," Miss Militia replied shortly, pulling the chair out so she could sit, which she did after a moment.

"Thanks a bunch," she said sarcastically, then looked around at the other people in the room. Emma looked furious and scared, her father looked much the same, her mother and sister appeared more puzzled than angry but also scared too. Madison was staring at the table, her hair hanging down over her face and hiding it, while her parents were clearly very nervous and confused. Her own brother was obviously only barely restraining himself from starting to ask a lot of questions, while his expression betrayed aggrieved confusion, and her mother simply seemed cowed and worried.

Emily Piggot, on the other hand, looked absolutely ready to shoot someone, under a veneer of calmness. In front of her were a number of the standard issue PRT tablets and she was sitting in front of and under the main screen for the room, which was enormous but currently blank.

A sound from behind made Sophia look back to see Armsmaster, Assault, and Dauntless had all come in and were now standing at the back of the room next to Miss Militia, while the door was closed with the troopers on the other side. Wondering what all this was about, since it seemed more than slightly over the top if it _was_ connected to Hebert, she returned her attention to the director.

"Director Piggot, I'm sure you realize you've violated our rights _and_ broken a number of laws by invading our house without a warrant and..." Emma's father suddenly said, causing the woman to look at him and hold up a hand.

"No. We don't have time for all that. You can complain later if you want, but right now you're going to listen to me." The look in her eyes made his bluster instantly stop. It was somewhat impressive, Sophia couldn't help but think, how unnerving she could appear with nothing more than a glare that could strip paint from the wall.

Panning that glare around the table, Piggot was clearly waiting for someone else to be foolish enough to interrupt, but no one did. Eventually she nodded. "Good. Understand this, I am _deadly_ serious about this, and you _will_ listen to me. It's entirely possible that none of this will matter in the slightest but I choose to believe I at least need to try, so I'm going to whether you like it or not." As Sophia was wondering what _that_ meant she reached out and tapped one of the tablets, causing the screen behind her to immediately produce an image. One that Sophia recognized immediately.

It was a photo of Taylor Hebert in all her utter lack of glory, looking at the camera through those stupid glasses and appearing her normal sheep-like confused self.

Emma looked, as did Madison who raised her head, then froze. The red-head glanced at Sophia who tried to indicate through her eyes to keep her mouth firmly shut no matter what happened. But she knew inside this was going to be bad.

The director waved a hand vaguely behind herself. "This, for those who do not know, is Taylor Hebert, fifteen years of age, daughter of Danny Hebert, and the girl who Sophia, Emma, and Madison spend a happy eighteen months torturing for kicks."

Alan Barnes immediately opened his mouth. She pointed a finger at him and shook her head once. He closed it again, pale with anger and worry. Emma now seemed to be beginning to understand this wasn't going to end well, although Sophia could see Madison had already come to that conclusion and was basically waiting for the ax to fall.

Piggot tapped the tablet and another image came up, causing several people to make a gagging sound when they realized what they were looking at. The imprint of a human form was clearly visible in the sludge in the locker, although there was no sign of whoever had made it. Sophia, of course, was well aware of the identity of that person, and she knew that Piggot was too.

"That torture culminating in a '_prank_' that would even under normal circumstances almost certainly count as negligent manslaughter if not attempted first degree murder, and very definitely as assault," the director said after she'd given everyone time to inspect the image. "Possible even bio-terrorism charges could be laid if the prosecutor was sufficiently creative."

Emma's father again opened his mouth and she wagged a finger at him without looking. "However, these are _not_ normal circumstances. Not even slightly." The woman scanned those present with a hard gaze. "These are, in fact, about as non-normal as circumstances _get_ even in today's world. You will note that there is no one in that… mess… although clearly there _was_. What some of you may not have heard is that Taylor Hebert, the girl who was pushed into that locker by our little terror cell here, _vanished_ from it at some point in the next _six hours_, the time it took for someone to bother to investigate where the stench was coming from."

Sophia's mother made a small sound, making her brother look at her, then give Sophia herself an unreadable look. She didn't return it.

It was important not to show weakness.

"Taylor Hebert disappeared two weeks ago, without trace, and without any sign of how or where she went. The locker was not opened during that period, she didn't leave the school somehow, there was no miraculous rescue… she simply disappeared. And the school, in conjunction with some PRT personnel who are currently very much regretting their life choices and will be for a considerable time, managed to cover this up."

She looked directly at Sophia as Madison's parents exchanged looks, and Zoe Barnes stared at her in horror. "The _reason_ that the school was able to do this, of course, is due to Sophia Hess being a Ward and a Parahuman. There is also a case to be made for serious dereliction of duty on the part of the school, fraud, embezzlement, and a number of other charges I have no doubt will keep the lawyers busy for quite a while."

Sophia stared at her in disbelief. The fucking _PRT Director_ had just outed her to everyone present without a hint of remorse or even interest. What the _fuck?_

_"However,_

none of that is of the slightest concern to me right now. Because there is a much more serious issue." Still looking at Sophia, Piggot leaned forward slightly. "Because last night, _Taylor Hebert came back_. And she is _not_ happy."

While Sophia gaped at her, as did Madison and Emma, she tapped the tablet again. Almost unwillingly Sophia raised her eyes, which widened when she finally worked out what she was staring at.

Madison made a little choked sound.

Alan Barnes swore under his breath. Several of the others gasped.

"That is what made the very noticeable explosion last night, the one that people in _New York_ probably heard," Director Piggot carried on into the deathly quiet room. "You will note the complete absence of Winslow High School. You will also note the appearance of a crater sufficiently large that under any normal physical conditions would have been accompanied by a blast large enough to erase the entire city and kill everyone in it."

She looked around. "That was done by Taylor Hebert, as she was in rather a bad mood and appears to have decided that we no longer required Winslow to exist."

No one said a thing.

Tapping the tablet again, she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Ellisburg." Another tap. "Machine Army." Another tap. "Three Blasphemies." Another tap. "Moord Nag." Another tap.

It went on for a while, during which Sophia felt herself going paler and paler. This was _impossible. _Even if the bitch _could_ have triggered, this sort of thing was beyond anyone except maybe Eidolon or Legend.

Eventually the image settled on a split view, one side showing a tall figure wearing matte purple power armor of completely unfamiliar design and holding a massive weapon of some sort, the other one showing what was clearly the same armor with the occupant having removed the helmet, in what looked like a pizza place. It certainly _looked_ like Hebert, but an older Hebert, sitting across the table from her father and stuffing her face with pizza. Her dad seemed to be smiling at her, and the helmet to the armor was at her elbow.

Sophia looked back and forth between the images, feeling a sense of unreality unlike anything she'd ever experienced before. Then she glanced at Emma, who was gaping at the screen.

"Yes, that's definitely Taylor Hebert," Piggot said after thirty seconds or so. "She had quite a trip by what she said. One that took several years on her personal timescale, and left her with skills and equipment that means she is undoubtedly the single most dangerous person on the entire planet. She can apparently teleport with global range, she can cause destruction on a scale that a large nuclear warhead would feel worried about, and she is _not remotely happy about what happened to her. _We have given her the code name '_Overkill_' and trust me, that is not even slightly a joke. Last night the E88 decided in their infinite stupidity that it would be a particularly brilliant idea to forcibly recruit her to their cause."

She tapped the tablet again. Sophia looked at the image of the remains of the Medhall tower while trying not to faint. "There is now no such thing as the E88. She killed all of them except for Kaiser, Rune, Othala, Stormtiger, and _possibly_ Alabaster, although we haven't yet found his body."

"Director, we just got a report that a patrol found what's left of Alabaster and roughly forty gang members in a building a few blocks from the Medhall tower," Armsmaster cut in calmly. She looked at him as everyone twisted around in their seats to do the same, then nodded.

"Fine. All but four of the E88 are deceased. Along with at least a hundred non-powered members. Between them, she and her father in a couple of hours totally destroyed the largest gang in the city and made it look like a video game. The building is a total loss, the surviving people are literally _begging_ us to put them in jail somewhere safe, like the moon, and we don't even _recognize_ half the weapons they used."

Director Piggot looked at Emma, then Madison, before landing on Sophia again. In a lower voice, she added, "And the big problem from _your_ point of view, which of course makes it _my_ problem too, is that you three are undoubtedly next on her list. From what she said, she's not likely to be as nice to you as she was to Kaiser, either."

Hearing a thud, Sophia managed to tear her terrified gaze from the basilisk glare of the older woman to see that Madison had fainted.

"Basically, I'm going to try to think of some way to keep you three idiots alive without risking the entire fucking city. And believe me, if it eventually comes down to a choice between you and half a million people who _weren't_ stupid enough to accidentally on purpose create someone who can probably beat Behemoth to a pulp bare handed, I'm going to stand to the side and hope she's satisfied when you're ash."

As Sophia felt herself pass out from sheer terror, she managed a certain amount of indignation about how smug the fucking woman sounded about that.

* * *

Taylor yawned, looking at a ceiling she hadn't seen in years, although it was completely familiar. Reaching up she scratched her head at the hairline, then dropped her arm to the bed again and smiled a little.

She'd made it.

After all that, she'd finally made it _home_. And even had pizza with her dad almost as soon as she did.

And not to mention made it very clear to Winslow what she thought of the place. That had been something she'd been looking forward to for a _very_ long time.

Pity that Kaiser had been such a dick, it had slightly spoiled a nice evening, but then she'd got to have fun with her father, and that sort of bonding experience had been exactly what they both needed. He'd enjoyed it as much as she had, she knew. He'd been whistling under his breath for half an hour after they got home.

Raising her head she looked across the room at her armor, which was standing in the corner, then shrugged and rolled over, closing her eyes again.

Everything else could wait for now. She was home, she was in a bed for nearly the first time in more than five years, it was _her own_ bed, and she was damn well going to get the most out of it. After that she was going to have a very large breakfast before she decided who to kill first.

No hurry.


End file.
